Monitoring Diameter and Roundness Errors in Projection-Microstereolithography of Biomedical Tooling and Scaffolds

Projection-microstereolithography allows for great versatility in the design of biomedical components with round cross sections, such as fine strands, channels and microtubules. The working principle of this method, however, leads to a gradual accumulation of diameter and roundness errors following model approximation and part building. This study presents a method to monitor and quantify these inaccuracies, and the results demonstrate the challenges that emerge from building round microfeatures with this additive manufacturing technique and suggest the need for additional error compensation compared to non-round geometries.