zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Doktor-Ingenieurs (Dr.-Ing.) von

3D difference detection is the task to verify whether the 3D geometry of a real object exactly corre-sponds to a 3D model of this object. Detecting differences between a real object and a 3D model of this object is for example required for industrial tasks such as prototyping, manufacturing and assembly control. State of the art approaches for 3D difference detection have the drawback that the difference detection is restricted to a single viewpoint from a static 3D position and that the differences cannot be detected in real time. This thesis introduces real-time 3D difference detection with a hand-held depth camera. In contrast to previous works, with the proposed approach, geometric differences can be detected in real time and from arbitrary viewpoints. Therefore, the scan position of the 3D difference detection be changed on the fly, during the 3D scan. Thus, the user can move the scan position closer to the object to inspect details or to bypass occlusions. The main research questions addressed by this thesis are: Q1 How can 3D differences be detected in real time and from arbitrary viewpoints using a single depth camera