3D PRINTING AND ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

Volume 2, Number 4, 2015

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
DOI: 10.1089/3dp.2015.0015

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

X-Ray Computed Tomography of Consumer-Grade

3D-Printed Parts
Anton du Plessis,1,2 Stephan Gerhard le Roux,1 and Francis Steyn1

Abstract

Industrial X-ray computed tomography has been applied to consumer-level 3D printing and an analysis method
developed that allows quantitative comparison of parts built from the same CAD model. It is of interest to
quantify the build accuracy of consumer-level 3D-printed parts and 3D printers, and this is generally done by
3D surface analysis technologies. However, X-ray tomography allows a much higher density of surface data
than traditional surface scanners or coordinate measurement machines. In addition to this surface data, internal
features can be visualized and quantified, such as macroporosity (purposely left space to save on printing cost),
microporosity (space between insufficiently fused lines as well as internal porosity within the print line), and
internal inclusions. Advanced dimensional measurements for quality control purposes are also possible, as well
as part-to-CAD variance analysis. It is envisaged that such analyses will be particularly useful to validate the
dimensional accuracy and assess the quality of products built with new printers or new filament types.
Introduction

The dimensional analysis of 3D-printed parts has traditionally been done by visual inspection and optical microscopy,1,2 surface roughness measurements,3 and coordinate
measurement machines.4,5 A recent review of extrusion
printing and dimensional analysis of such 3D-printed parts
summarizes these concepts.6 However, this review does not
make mention of X-ray tomography as an analysis method.
X-ray micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) is a materials characterization technology that allows nondestructive
3D visualization and measurement at high resolution. Compared to traditional methods, the method has advantages as it
provides not only exterior surface information at a high point
density, but also internal surfaces and other features, providing a full 3D data set. A recent review of X-ray micro-CT
in materials sciences and its use for quantitative analysis is
given in ref.7
Synchrotron tomography has been applied to the analysis
of additive manufactured scaffold structures, especially due
to its advantages in analysis of pore spaces and scaffold
thickness analysis.8 Laboratory X-ray tomography has also
advanced to the point where similar analysis is possible using
desktop scanners as demonstrated in refs.9,10 X-ray micro-CT
has progressed to a point where full 3D analysis is possible,
including porosity, wall thickness analysis, and part-to-CAD
comparison, within a timeframe of 34 h as shown in ref.11
1

for a casting, and the same is possible routinely for additively

manufactured parts of any material type. Its application to the
basic analysis of laser additive manufactured parts has been
described in a conference article,12 and more recently the
method has been applied to detailed 3D porosity analysis of
electron beam-melted metal samples for optimization of
build parameters.13
The aim of this article is to describe the type of quantitative
information attainable from X-ray micro-CT specifically for
consumer-level 3D printing, using university logos printed in
an open access 3D print lab, the Stellenbosch Idea2Product
lab. The method described can be especially useful for
quantitative comparison of different printer types and filament types, as well as a relatively simple 3D view of part
accuracy with quantitative values and 3D visualization of
results demonstrated in this article.
Experimental Details

The logos of dimensions 30 mm 30 mm 13.9 mm were

produced in PLA and ABS on both a 3D Systems CubePro
and a 3D Printing systems UP! Mini using the same STL
model data but different forms of internal support structures
according to the printer software default settings. Print layers
were chosen between 0.2 and 0.25 mm. Printing was done in
the Stellenbosch University Idea2Product Lab. One good part
of each material type and that from each printer were chosen

CT Scanner Facility, Central Analytical Facilities, and 2Physics Department, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa.

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DU PLESSIS ET AL.

FIG. 1. The 3D-printed logo: (a) photograph and (b) 3D view from X-ray computed tomography (CT) scan. Color images
available online at www.liebertpub.com/3dp
randomly for this comparative study, as well as one additional
warped sample produced in ABS. Warping of ABS parts can
occur due to insufficient heating of the sample chamber during
printing. In total, 100 of these parts were printed in 2 days at
the Stellenbosch Idea2Product lab. The logos were used for
marketing by sticking printed contact details on the back of the
logo, as seen in the Video S1 (see Supplementary Data are
available online at www.liebertpub.com/3dp; the printed text
on the article is easily seen in the CT data). This video shows
the CT data of the warped sample and the CAD data overlay in
a wireframe model.
X-ray micro-CT scans were performed at the Stellenbosch
University CT Scanner Facility, using in this case a General
Electric Phoenix VjTomejX L240, using a 180 kV transmission X-ray source. Scan settings were 60 kV and 300 lA
with a voxel resolution of 25 lm. Averaging and skipping of
images was used to enhance image quality, resulting in a scan
time excluding setup and reconstruction of just over 1 h.
Faster scans at lower quality are possible for quick inspections but are not within the scope of this work.
Analysis was performed with the software Volume Graphics VGStudioMax 2.2. All five volume data sets presented

here were processed in the same way. Once the method was
determined, the total analysis time was about 4 h per sample.
The data were loaded using 8-bit format to speed up analysis,
and an adaptive Gaussian smoothing filter was applied as a
first step, to remove noise. This was followed by a region
growing tool selection of the material as a region of interest.
A closing function (morphological operation) was applied to
this region of interest to close up small holes in the surface. It
must be noted that the data are not modified in any way, but
the selected region has its surface holes closed for further
selections as described below.
A region growing tool selection of the air outside the
material is applied using a selection function ignore other
ROIs, which ensures that the selection does not enter the
object and only selected air external to the part. This is followed by an inversion function that leaves a region of interest
including internal micro- and macroporosity (air spaces left
on purpose within the part but enclosed). Using surface determinations with starting contours as either of these regions
of interest provides information of volumes of material,
macroporosity, and exterior and interior surface areas. The
use of the surface determination advanced function allows

FIG. 2. CT slice images and their corresponding slice planes in 3D for (a) a front view and (b) a side view. Color images
available online at www.liebertpub.com/3dp

X-RAY CT OF 3D-PRINTED PARTS

193

FIG. 3. CT slice images of parts from the CubePro in PLA (top left), UP! Mini in PLA (top right), CubePro in ABS
(bottom left), and UP! Mini in ABS (bottom right).
the ROI selection to be used as a starting contour (or guess)
and then refines the surface using local gradient optimization
for material edge determination. Furthermore, a defect
analysis applied to either of these regions of interest provides
an automated analysis of macro- and microporosity, which
allows pore size distribution analysis, for example. In this
case the method used for distinguishing between macro- and
microporosity involved selecting the largest automatically
detected void, viewing it in slice images, and if it corresponds
to a macropore, it is deleted from the analysis until only the
micropores remain. In cases where the difference is less obvious, the analysis method could be modified using a more
time-consuming method not described here.
Once a surface determination has been done, the original
STL data of the part can be loaded into the software for

alignment (3D overlay using a best-fit procedure) and part-toCAD comparison. The surface determination can be saved in
the form of an STL file for analysis in other CAD software,
and in this case all files were in the region of 40100 Mb per
STL file. The image processing steps described here, to
generate a good CAD file, are approximately 12 h per
sample. The further steps are the porosity determination and
CAD variance analysis, both of which can greatly vary in
analysis time depending on chosen parameters, which in this
case was 1 h each for porosity (both micro- and macroporosity) and CAD variance analyses. It is interesting to note
that parts of this analysis could be done by a trained CAD user
and does not have to be done by a CT analysis expert.
All steps above have been made into a series of 50
screenshots for viewing as Supplementary Data, starting with

FIG. 4. Comparison of the CT surface data with the design CAD file allows a part-to-CAD comparison after an autoalignment: (left) ABS part from CubePro print and (right) ABS warped sample selected for demonstration purposes. Color
images available online at www.liebertpub.com/3dp

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DU PLESSIS ET AL.

FIG. 5. (a) A 3D view of one selection of internal porosityin this case the 2000 most spherical voids within and between
plastic layers. (b) The pore size distribution histogram for the internal (micro) porosity. Color images available online at
www.liebertpub.com/3dp
basic image processing steps as described, followed by
analysis of micro- and macroporosity, and finally CAD variance analysis.
Results and Discussion

A sample printed in red ABS on an UP! Mini printer is

shown in Figure 1a, while the CT scan data, after clean-up of
mounting material, are shown in 3D in red in Figure 1b. The
clean-up involves the use of image processing tools to remove
unwanted materials near the object of interest (e.g., from the
mounting material in the scanner), without affecting the region
of interest itself. A combination of region growing and morphological functions is applied as described in the previous
section. At this point, slice images can be analyzed as shown in
Figure 2 for front and side views. Black indicates void regions
(air), gray indicates material, and bright white spots are inclusions. The layering is visible in the slice images, showing
insufficient fusion in places. Internal porosity within the layer
lines is also visible (black spots within gray areas).
Individual internal viewing of parts can be extremely
useful for inspection purposes, but sometimes direct comparisons are required between different parts built on different machines or with different filaments. In such cases, the
exact same X-ray scan settings must be chosen to ensure
consistency. Different scanner types and especially the resolution, voltage, current, averaging, and number of images
acquired strongly affect image quality, which will affect the
type of information possible from the analysis. For direct
comparison between PLA and ABS on both the CubePro and
UP! Mini printers, selected slice images are shown in Figure 3.
Different internal support structure patterns are visible as
chosen default with each printers software. Insufficient fusing

of layers is visible in all parts, while the ABS contains inclusions that the PLA does not. The same filament rolls of PLA
and ABS were used successively on the two printers to ensure
direct comparison.
At this point, the design CAD file can be loaded and
aligned to the CT data set for a CAD comparison. The variance in 3D allows viewing of the largest deviation areas using
color coding as shown in Figure 4 (top) for the ABS part from
the CubePro printer and in the video associated with it (Video
S2). This variance can be calculated using the CAD file as
reference and calculating the variance of each surface element
of the actual relative to the nearest CAD surface. A quantitative measure of variance is provided in the form of the 90%
cumulated variance value. The 90% cumulated variance value
for this sample is 0.21 mm, which means that 90% of the actual
sample surface (CT data) has a variance of less than 0.21 mm
from the design file. The warped sample also shown in Figure 4
(bottom) has a 90% cumulated variance value of 1.1 mm. This
measurement is valid for all surface points within the range of
the analysis; the range must therefore be chosen carefully. All
variance data are available in the form of a histogram that can
also be used for comparing samples.
It should be mentioned here that this method can be applied
to any type of 3D-printed part and its design file. For example, anatomical shapes such as bones that are originally derived from CT scans and are subsequently processed and 3D
printed can also be compared between their print file and
actual printed and scanned part. The method of overlap of a
CAD file with the CT data can further be applied in timelapse experiments, where the same part is scanned numerous
times, for example, when it is made for mechanical operation,
to investigate the possibility of loss of material due to mechanical wear.

Table 1. Comparison of Quantitative Computed Tomography Data for Five Different Parts
STL file
3

Material only volume (mm )

Material only surface (mm2)
Material including macroporosity (mm3)
Macroporosity (mm3)
Microporosity (%)
Exterior surfaces (mm2)
Cumulated 90% value for part variance
from CAD (mm)

7440
6023

Cube PLA

UP! PLA

Cube ABS

UP! ABS

Warped ABS

5392
9170
7388
1996
0.24
5933
0.199

5151
26,427
7526
2375
0.6
6664
0.203

5242
17,687
7522
2280
0.9
8433
0.210

5244
23,289
7421
2177
1.1
6889
0.236

6461
21,790
8248
1787
1.2
6636
1.1

X-RAY CT OF 3D-PRINTED PARTS

A defect analysis was applied to provide statistical information and viewing of the porosity. The macroporosity is
well connected in 3D, and comprises a large fraction of the
total internal volume, making it difficult to visualize. The
microporosity contains both spherical pores within the material layers and long thin pore spaces between insufficiently
fused layers. The most spherical pores of the microporosity
analysis are shown in Figure 5a, while the pore size distribution is shown in Figure 5b. The viewed microporosity is
less than 0.9% of the total part volume. The pores are shown
to be distributed homogeneously across the part. Further
statistical information is available from the porosity analysis,
which can be useful for parts that should have good mechanical properties.
A quantitative comparison of the selected parts from two
printers and two material types and one warped sample is
given in Table 1. The STL design files material volume
totals 7440 mm3, while all parts are close to this value except
the warped part. The corresponding STL total exterior surface area is 6023 mm2 and all parts are close to this value
except the ABS part printed on the CubePro. In this case, the
larger surface area can be correlated to an opening in the
surface that could not be closed for analysis, resulting in a
larger total surface area (including some interior surfaces).
Other values that could be determined include the material
actual volume (i.e., the total volume of material only), its
surface area, macroporosity, microporosity, and variance
from CAD values. Interesting to note is the relatively smaller
microporosity in the PLA compared to the ABS. The CAD
variance values are all in the range of 0.2 mm, while the
warped part is 1.1 mm, showing clearly how this value could
be used for quantitative comparisons.
Conclusions

We have demonstrated how a high-resolution CT scan and

an advanced image processing procedure can provide different types of qualitative and quantitative information
of 3D-printed parts from consumer-level 3D printers. The
method can be applied to dimensionally test 3D printers and
assess build quality, not only for surface data but also for full
volumetric information on material volume, material surface
area (internal and external), pore/cavity space, and internal
porosity between and within layers.
In this demonstration, the CubePro and UP! Mini printers
were compared, as well as ABS and PLA filaments. Individual variation is expected between samples from the
same printer and the same filament. It is interesting that both
printers and both filament types produce parts very close to
the CAD design, and all except the warped sample have a
90% cumulated CAD variance of less than 0.24 mm. Another
interesting result is the fact that there is less microporosity in
PLA compared to ABS, indicating that the layers are better
fused relatively than the ABS parts. The surface area of the
material in the UP! Miniprinted part is larger, mainly due to
the larger quantity of internal support structures. The UP!
Mini parts have rougher surfaces, resulting in higher surface
areas than the CAD design. The CubePro part in PLA has a
lower surface area than the CAD model, indicating a
smoother surface, but also a section that was entirely missing
(and thereby reduces the total surface area). However, the
ABS part from the CubePro has holes in the top surface,

195

resulting in a measurement of exterior surface area that

contains some interior surfaces, resulting in an overestimate.
The warped sample shows a 1.1 mm CAD variance value that
is significantly larger than the other parts, clearly indicating
the usefulness of this value for quality control and quantification. The method is not limited to consumer-level parts and
can be used for quality control in other 3D additive manufactured part types as well.
Author Disclosure Statement

No competing financial interests exist.

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Address correspondence to:

Anton du Plessis
CT Scanner Facility
Stellenbosch University
7602 Stellenbosch
South Africa
E-mail: anton2@sun.ac.za