BRDF representation in response to the build orientation in 3D-printed digital materials

Additively manufactured (AM) parts still lack a thorough understanding of their optical properties, particularly surface texture and reflectance characteristics at different viewing angles. This study examines the reflectance properties of material jetting (MJT) parts using bidirectional reflectance distribution functions (BRDFs). The visual appearance of the MJT parts was analyzed using a gonio-spectrophotometer at 328 unique incidence and viewing geometries for seven different wedge angles for build orientation (BO) from 0° to 90° at 15° intervals. The redundancy analysis (RDA) and principal component analysis (PCA) were used to study BO and to determine the prominent measurement geometries. The results indicate higher BOs resulted in more color and texture variation and rougher surfaces, with Sq 4.21 μm vertical compared to 1.42 μm for horizontal BOs. Furthermore, it affected the visual representation and parametric estimation of BRDF, where significantly lower luminance, more diffuse reflection, and less hue distribution were observed for all CMYK resins printed at higher BOs. Accordingly, vertically printed surfaces showed a wider near-to-specular luminance area than other BOs. An analysis of the bidirectional reflectance property suggests that a gonio-spectrophotometer can be embedded in the printing process and quality assurance in AM as a computationally efficient model.