What started as a project to investigate the accuracy and reproducibility of reverse engineering a product using computed tomography (CT) and additive manufacturing with 3D printing technology has helped to establish some guidelines and processes for the future of high-quality “3D copying.”
Back in 2010, a group of engineers and technologists from industry leading organizations including Fraunhofer EZRT, Bayerisches Laserzentrum, and Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften - Fachhochschule Hof, gathered to perform an experiment to develop a proof of concept for 3D printing. The goal of this experiment was to determine the accuracy of each sub-step of the process. For the experiment, the specimen to be tested was a calibrated hold croft bar fabricated of a carbon fiber bar and ruby balls. (See Image 1. Calibrated hold croft bars are popular within the field of calibration of metrology machines and determination of measuring accuracy.)