PBF, DED, polymer
Printers shipped Powdrix-ready, with the control API, the parameter envelope and limits declared at the factory. The agent runs on the OEM machine; the OEM keeps the machine relationship.
Partners
The channel is the machine.
Powdrix's distribution plan runs through the companies already on the additive floor: AM-machine OEMs, in-situ monitoring and CT vendors, post-processing equipment makers, AM MES vendors and the integrators who connect them, only where Powdrix remains the system of action and keeps the model, audit-log and outcome data rights. The programme opens with the design-partner cohort; nothing here is a signed partnership.
Illustrative scenario: PBF-2 · Ti-6Al-4V bracket family, 24-part build, 23 of 24 parts released, one held
Partner types
Who fits, and how
How each kind of partner fits the plan.
Melt-pool cameras, CT, metrology
Camera and CT data fused into Meltrix and Poroscan. The vendor keeps the measurement; Powdrix adds the prediction, the grading and the link back to the build.
Ovens, HIP, depowdering
Cycle data into genealogy and recipes inside the qualified window. Forgebot coordinates the cell.
Jobs, genealogy, quality
Build genealogy written back into the system of record. Evidence packets for qualification review.
AM cells and OT networks
Connection, inventory and the shadow-mode weeks of a pilot, delivered by people the floor already trusts.
AS9100, ISO 13485, ASTM F42, ISO 52900
Keeping the reasoning layer's citations current as standards change.
How it works
What a partner does and gets
The outline of the programme as planned.
A partner does
- Declares the parameters, envelopes and interfaces on the systems they ship or support
- Co-delivers the shadow-mode and assist-mode weeks of a pilot
- Brings a floor with a metric and a signed baseline
A partner gets
- A Powdrix-ready designation for the machine, sensor or MES, once the connector is proven
- A share of the Machine and Floor subscription on floors they bring
- Early access to the SDK and the twin for their own engineering
Integrations
It speaks printer, not cloud
Powdrix reads and writes through the systems already on the floor. No rip and replace, no parallel historian, no new slicer to learn. Vendor names are examples of systems found on additive floors; connector availability is confirmed per site.
Build-preparation and slicer software (Materialise, Autodesk Netfabb, Oqton, Siemens NX AM and nTop class tools)
Geometry, orientation, supports and parameter sets in; validated recipes out
Laser and electron-beam PBF, DED and polymer SLS, MJF and FDM machines through OEM control APIs
Machine state and in-situ streams in; bounded parameter writes inside the envelope
Coaxial and off-axis melt-pool cameras, photodiodes, layer and recoater cameras, thermal sensors (EOS EOSTATE, Nikon SLM, Sigma Additive and Velo3D Assure class systems)
Frames and streams fused at the printer edge
CT scanners, surface vision and metrology (Zeiss, Nikon CT, Waygate and Volume Graphics class systems)
Volumes, images and scans in; grading, routing and packets out
Stress-relief and heat-treatment ovens, HIP units, depowdering and support removal (Solukon, AM Solutions and PostProcess class equipment)
Cycle data in; recipe parameters inside the qualified window out
Sieving, lot tracking and reuse records
Lot, reuse count and quality into genealogy
Jetson and Isaac driven handling cells, grippers, transfer rigs
Build-complete and oven signals in; handling tasks out
AM MES and build management (Oqton, Authentise, 3YOURMIND, AMFG and Materialise CO-AM class systems)
Jobs and orders in; genealogy, holds and dispositions back
Run timeline · scenario
One scenario run, step by step
Every Powdrix run is an ordered, inspectable sequence. This is run_7c2e4b on PBF-2 · Ti-6Al-4V bracket family, 24-part build. Scenario completes in 10 steps with one approval gate. Twin recipe #14 selected, one lack-of-fusion precursor at layer 1,872 cleared by a bounded power trim, CT triage in 11 minutes, 23 of 24 parts released with full genealogy and one held for review.
run_7c2e4b
PBF-2 · Ti-6Al-4V bracket family, 24-part build
illustrative scenario
SUCCEEDED
-
01
ingest.job
SUCCEEDED
0.7 s
Floor Orchestrator · Pulled the job from AM MES: 24 Ti-6Al-4V brackets, 60 µm layers, 3,140 layers, density target 99.7%, geometry tolerance ±0.10 mm, AS9100 evidence packet required. Locked the OEM-approved parameter envelope for PBF-2.
-
02
twin.simulate
SUCCEEDED
6 m 12 s
Part Twin · Simulated 40 candidate orientation, support and parameter recipes for thermal field, residual stress and distortion, ranked on predicted density, geometry deviation, takt and energy.
-
03
prep.release
SUCCEEDED
48 s
Prep-and-Parameter · Recipe #14 released: 32° orientation, lattice supports on two faces, laser power and speed inside the qualified envelope. Predicted distortion 0.06 mm, predicted density 99.8%.
-
04
recoat.check
SUCCEEDED
continuous
Recoat-and-Powder · Recoater image checked every layer. Powder lot L-2291 on its third reuse, humidity in window. One short-feed at layer 412 corrected with a dosing increase before the next layer fused.
-
05
melt.stabilise
SUCCEEDED
continuous
Melt-and-Layer · Melt-pool, photodiode and thermal streams fused at 120 fps. Lack-of-fusion risk rose to 0.61 on part 17 at layer 1,872 and was cleared by a 3% power trim inside the envelope within four layers.
-
06
thermal.compensate
SUCCEEDED
2 m 04 s
Thermal-and-Distortion · Interlayer temperature on the tall brackets ran 14 °C above the twin's prediction from layer 2,300. A 1.5 s interlayer dwell held the thermal field inside the predicted band through the top section.
-
07
approve.human
APPROVAL
4 m 30 s
Floor Orchestrator · Melt-and-Layer proposed a hatch-spacing change on part 17 beyond the qualified envelope. Held for the AM process engineer, who declined it and chose to flag part 17 for CT priority instead. Decision logged.
-
08
handle.depowder
SUCCEEDED
38 m
Robot-and-Handling · Plate unloaded by the handling cell on build complete, depowdered, and parts transferred to stress relief. Powder returned to the sieve with lot L-2291 reuse count incremented in genealogy.
-
09
inspect.ct
SUCCEEDED
11 m
Defect-and-Inspect · 24 CT volumes segmented for pores, cracks and lack of fusion in 11 minutes. 23 parts graded accept against the acceptance criteria. Part 17 shows a 180 µm indication at layer 1,870 and is routed to the inspector for disposition.
-
10
release.qualify
SUCCEEDED
1 m 20 s
Quality-and-Conformance · 23 parts released with the full genealogy: recipe, layer tags, melt-pool events, thermal trace, approvals, post-processing cycles and CT result. Part 17 held with a non-conformance opened. Evidence packet assembled for sign-off.
Accelerated computing
Physical AI, at the melt pool
A build is thousands of layers and a day of machine time. Perception has to be local, deterministic and fast, CT has to be triaged in minutes, and the twin has to run before the build. Powdrix runs GPU inference at the printer edge and keeps training, simulation and optimisation in the cloud or on-prem.
Edge perception
One Jetson node per printer for 30 to 240 fps melt-pool, layer and recoater streams with photodiode and thermal fusion. Sub-250 ms alerting and 1 to 2 s bounded recommendations are the design targets. Jetson Thor is planned for multi-laser machines.
CT and vision inference
2D and 3D segmentation models for porosity, cracks, lack of fusion, surface defects and metrology comparison, served per inspection cell. Sub-15-minute CT triage per build is the design target.
Training
Defect, melt-pool-instability, build-failure and AM reasoning models trained weekly over multimodal build data, with gated promotion from shadow to assist to bounded. Dedicated capacity is planned.
Part twin
Thermal, melt-pool-proxy, residual-stress and distortion simulation for recipe ranking, plus robot-cell and queue simulation. Modulus surrogates are planned so sweeps run at production cadence.
Synthetic data
Rare pore, lack-of-fusion, spatter, recoat-streak and distortion scenarios generated and validated against real CT and in-situ data before promotion. 1,000 to 10,000 per qualified part family is the initial target.
Optimisation and analytics
Build nesting, fleet scheduling across machines, ovens, HIP, inspection and robots, energy windows, and GPU analytics over genealogy tables.
Robot handling and serving
Plate, powder and part handling policies trained in simulation and run on Jetson in the cell. NIM packages perception, prediction and reasoning services behind the floor orchestrator.
FAQ
Straight answers
The questions operations directors, process engineers and certification engineers ask in the first meeting.
Only inside the OEM-approved parameter envelope, only on an explicit allow-list with per-tag limits, and only at the autonomy level your floor has set. Level 1 is advisory: Powdrix predicts and recommends and a human enters everything. Design partners start there, in shadow mode. Anything that leaves the envelope or affects qualification always waits for a named approver.
Control returns to the printer's own controller and the standing recipe. Powdrix is a supervisory layer on top of the machine controls, monitoring systems and MES you already run, never a replacement for them, so an outage degrades the floor to its current way of running, not to a stop.
Advisory recommendations start from the twin's physics and the part spec in the first weeks. Defect and build-failure prediction improve as layers, CT results and engineer corrections accumulate per part family. The first models are trained on existing in-situ camera data; synthetic rare-defect scenarios augment them only after validation against real CT.
Only if you choose cloud training. Parameter sets, geometry, defect libraries and process memory are isolated per tenant and never used to train another customer's models. Cross-customer learning is federated and IP-isolated and waits on written data agreements. A fully on-prem deployment is available for sensitive producers.
It is designed not to. Validated parameters never change without the sign-off your quality system requires, model changes go through change control, and every action carries model version, data lineage, approval status and qualification impact in the audit log. Powdrix does not claim AS9100 or ISO 13485 certification; assurance packages are planned for the 6 to 12 month release.
You are, as with any process change, which is why every write is policy-checked, bounded, logged and reversible, and why anything that affects qualification waits for a named approver. The audit log records the request, the reasoning, the limits applied and the human decision.
Get started
Talk about partnering
Tell us what you ship or support and which floors run it.