System and method for determining additive manufacturing beam parameters

An additive manufacturing system comprising:

• a beam emitter;
• and a control unit comprising one or more processors and a memory, the one or more processors configured to determine one or more geometrical characteristics of each of multiple segments of a build part at a candidate position of the build part relative to a build platform of an additive manufacturing instrument, wherein the one or more geometrical characteristics include an angle of incidence between (i) a beam line extending from the beam emitter of the additive manufacturing instrument to a surface layer of the build part and (ii) a surface normal vector of a respective skin of the corresponding segment proximate to the beam line, wherein the skin of the corresponding segment is a side surface of one or more layers of the build part immediately below the surface layer,
• wherein the one or more processors are configured to select, based on the one or more geometrical characteristics of the segments including the angle of incidence, a first set of beam parameters to be used by the beam emitter to emit first focused energy beams that form a first segment of the segments of the build part and a second set of beam parameters to be used by the beam emitter to emit second focused energy beams that form a second segment of the segments of the build part, wherein at least one of the beam parameters in the second set differs from the beam parameters in the first set.