A system monitoring an additive manufacturing (AM) machine recoat operation includes an automatic defect recognition subsystem having a predictive model catalog each applicable to a product and to one recoat error indication having a domain dependent feature, the predicative models representative of a recoat error indication appearance at a pixel level of an image captured during recoat operations. The system includes an online monitoring subsystem having an image classifier unit that classifies recoat error indications at the pixel level based on predictive models selected on their metadata, a virtual depiction unit that creates a virtual depiction of an ongoing AM build from successive captured image, and a processor unit to monitor the build for recoat error indications, classify a detected indication, and provide a determination regarding the severity of the detected indication on the ongoing build. A method and a non-transitory computer-readable medium are also disclosed.