Optical system for the measurement of the surface topography of additively manufactured parts
Narcis joined Sensofar in 2020, and since then he obtained a BSc in Nanoscience and MSc in Optics and Photonics. He started a scientific career within Sensofar's science team, where he works as Scientific Staff at the R+D department since 2021, working on a variety of research projects, framed within an Industrial Ph.D. His scientific interests are centered around computational methods for optical metrology, including image processing and optical design.
Optical system for the measurement of the surface topography of additively manufactured parts
Narcís Vilar, Roger Artigas, Carlos Bermudez, Adam Thompson, Lewis Newton, Richard K Leach, Marti Duocastella and Guillem Carles
Abstract
Additive manufacturing is now regularly used for customised fabrication of parts with complex shapes and geometries. However, the large range of relevant scales, high slopes, step-like transitions, undercuts, alternation between dark and overly bright regions, and other complex features present on the surfaces, in particular of metal additive parts, represent a significant challenge for current optical measurement technologies. Measuring surfaces with such complex features requires high numerical aperture optics, and state-of-the-art systems commonly include optics that can only reliably acquire surface topographies over a small field of view, typically tens or hundreds of micrometers. Such measurements are often insufficient for practical applications. Here, we present an optical system that features a large numerical aperture (>0.3) and a wide field of view (2.9 x 2.9) mm, capable of measuring additive manufacturing parts in a single measurement, without the need for lateral stitching to increase the field of view. The proposed system exhibits optical properties that provide facility for large-field, high-resolution measurement of industrially-produced additively manufactured parts.
