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Abstract Directed Energy Deposition (DED) is one of the main additive manufacturing (AM) families, enabling the fabrication of multi-material parts with high material addition rates. However, the incremental nature of DED fabrication makes it prone to local defect formation due to process condition fluctuations. Known for its rapid and precise 3D surface measurement capabilities, digital fringe projection (DFP) was previously demonstrated in process monitoring for powder bed AM. This study brings DFP to the DED process through development of a custom motor stage system and validates its effectiveness in assessing surface topography and build height measurement. Measurements were taken on both correctly deposited builds and builds with off-nominal deposition conditions, where the system was able to detect pitting as small as 0.425 mm in the lateral size and 0.154 mm in depth in the case of reduced laser energy. This work paves the way for future machine learning-enabled interlayer defect identification, classification, and healing via altering subsequent processing settings.