Additive manufacturing (AM) techniques have been used to enhance the design and fabrication of complex components for various applications in the medical, aerospace, energy, and consumer products industries. A defining feature for many AM parts is the complex internal geometry enabled by the printing process. However, inspecting these internal structures requires volumetric imaging, i.e., X-ray CT, leading to the well-known challenge of visualizing complex 3D geometries using 2D desktop interfaces. Furthermore, existing tools are limited to single-user systems making it difficult to jointly discuss or share findings with a larger team, i.e., the designers, manufacturing experts, and evaluation team. In this work, we present a collaborative virtual reality (VR) for the exploration and inspection of AM parts. Geographically separated experts can virtually inspect and jointly discuss data. It also supports VR and non-VR users, who can be spectators in the VR environment. Various features for data exploration and inspection are developed and enhanced via real-time synchronization. We followed usability and interface verification guidelines using Nielsen's heuristics approach. Furthermore, we conducted exploratory and semi-structured interviews with domain experts to collect qualitative feedback. Results reveal potential benefits, applicability, and current limitations. The proposed collaborative VR environment provides a new basis and opens new research directions for virtual inspection and team collaboration in AM settings.

翻译：增材制造技术已广泛应用于医疗、航空航天、能源及消费品行业中复杂部件的设计与制造。许多增材制造部件的一个关键特征在于其打印工艺形成的复杂内部几何结构。然而，这些内部结构的检测需要体积成像技术（如X射线CT），由此产生了使用二维桌面界面可视化复杂三维几何结构的典型难题。此外，现有工具局限于单用户系统，难以支持设计团队、制造专家和评估小组等大型团队共同讨论或共享发现。本文提出一种用于探索和检测增材制造部件的协同虚拟现实环境。地理上分散的专家可在该环境中进行虚拟检测并共同讨论数据。该系统同时支持虚拟现实与非虚拟现实用户，非虚拟现实用户可作为观察者参与虚拟环境。通过实时同步技术开发并增强了多种数据探索与检测功能。我们采用尼尔森启发式方法遵循了可用性与界面验证指南，并通过探索性半结构化访谈收集了领域专家的定性反馈。研究结果揭示了该方法的潜在优势、适用性及当前局限性。本文提出的协同虚拟现实环境为增材制造场景中的虚拟检测与团队协作提供了新的基础，并开辟了新的研究方向。