Secure 3D Printing: Reconstructing and Validating Solid Geometries using Toolpath Reverse Engineering

As 3D printing becomes more ubiquitous, traditional centralized process chains are transformed to a distributed manufacturing model, where each step of the process can be outsourced to different parties. Despite the countless benefits of this revolutionary technology, outsourcing parts of the process to potentially untrusted parties raises security concerns, as malicious design modifications can impact the structural integrity of the manufactured 3D geometries. To address this problem, we introduce a novel compiler that allows reverse engineering G-code toolpaths (i.e., machine commands describing how a geometry is printed) to reconstruct a close approximation of the original 3D object. Our framework then uses Finite Element Analysis to simulate the reconstructed object under different stress conditions and validate its structural integrity, without requiring a golden model reference.