Read the full case study here.

Over the past few years, X-Rite’s earlier version of NetProfiler has become the standard in textiles, plastics, packaging and coatings industries to optimize the performance of benchtop spectrophotometers that all experience some data drift over time due to age and use. NetProfiler 3.0 now extends the power of profiling to handheld devices with embedded profiling capabilities.

“We are particularly excited about our new NetProfiler solutions for handheld spectrophotometers, extending the benefits of profiling to new category of devices and customer workflows.” said Richard Knapp, product manager for the software. He says all versions of NetProfiler 3.0 have improved speed and stability on personal computers and can be run offline to store profiles on portable USB memory sticks.

Another feature of NetProfiler 3.0 is its capability to profile new families of devices such as sphere-based instruments like the Ci52 for industrial applications. For companies in the graphic arts industry that use the SpectroEye spectrophotometer, NetProfiler 3.0 provides a profiling solution for graphics arts workflow.

In fact NetProfiler 3.0 supports the following:

• Benchtop Models
• Color i5
• Color i7
• CE-7000A
• SF-600 Series
• Handheld Devices
• SP62
• SP64
• 962
• 964
• SpectroEye
• Ci52

For the CF57 and RM400, NetProfiler 3.0 can conduct performances checks.

NetProfiler 3.0 can help customers by providing:

• confidential reports that detail instrument performance, compliance status by location and instrument, relationships between color partners, and local auditing and certification;
• ways to exchange comparative color data easily anywhere in the world with business partners that may have various types of color-measurement instruments; and,
• new cost-effective ceramic calibration media providing equivalent performance to BCRA-II tiles.  With two formats optimized for benchtop or handheld spectrophotometers, the new calibration media offers significantly improved spatial uniformity, consistent targeting, and improved performance – particularly for smaller aperture devices.  The improved calibration media allows the number of color standards to be reduced, streamlining the profiling process.

NetProfiler 3.0 Press Release
NetProfiler 3.0 Data Sheet
NetProfiler 3.0 Website

Well as we found out, color plays an important role in this field of study.  Color is used to compare, reference, and classify samples.  Even more interesting is how an X-Rite spectrophotometer and software normally used for paint matching, was used to analyze burned bone fragments for this book.

A CA22 spectrophotometer from X-Rite, which was used to measure color of burned bone fragments.  Using the CA22, along with ColorDesigner Software (which is normally used for as a color matching software for hardware/paint stores) over 3,000 bone fragments were measured and  a corresponding CIELAB color was obtained for each sample. The Munsell Conversion Program from Wallkill Color, was used to convert the measured CIELAB results into Munsell, so that Munsell color standards could be used to identify the samples.  Based on the measurements taken, the researchers were able to classify the bone samples, and even used statistical analysis to help compare, & identify previously unidentified bone fragment samples.  It’s quite fascinating to see how our instruments and software are used in a way we never imagined.  This is system is being used to measure burned bones, what other applications can our technology be used in?  Have you come across any X-Rite instruments being used atypically?

If you want to learn more about the book or how they conducted their color measurements and their results, the book can be purchased or visit the Google Books entry on The Burned Analysis of Human Remains for a multi-page excerpt on how they used our equipment.  The discussion involving X-Rite begins on page 115 and go on until page 126.

Neil Slater, owner of Arnprior Home Hardware in Arnprior, Ontario says that new color matching equipment from X-Rite now makes it easy for customers to find latex-based paints that match the colors of alkyd oil-based paints that contain high amounts of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs typically come from additives, organic solvents and resins used in paint formulations.

While paint retailers in Canada can sell existing stocks of oil-based paints now, they will be banned from selling oil-based paints and stains in Fall 2012 if they do not meet current government limits on VOCs.

Slater says a majority of what his store sells now is latex-based and compliant oil-based paints. “If they have color on a wall that is an oil-based paint and they would like to match the color, they can bring in a sample for color match using a latex-based paint or use a primer that goes over the oil-based paint,” he says.

The MatchRite® iVue color matching system can match the colors of paints, fabrics, and objects with curved surfaces such as lamps, bowls and other inspiration items. “We’ve color matched a table leg, a piece of a dresser, all sorts of things,” Slater says. “It’s amazing.  And the color matching is extremely accurate.”

“A paint department without an iVue isn’t a paint apartment, in my opinion,” says Slater, owner of the 8,400-square-foot store that sells home improvement, hardware and seasonal items.  “It’s kind of like a grocery store being out of milk, it’s just not acceptable.”

The iVue spectrophotometer proved itself as an indispensable tool for matching just about any color in the Beauti-Tone family of interior and exterior paints, which are made at a Home Hardware Store’s Limited – Paint and Home Products division in Burford, Ontario.

“Before our iVue, if a customer came in with a Pratt & Lambert or a Benjamin Moore color, and said ‘I like your paint, but I want this color,’ we could offer any of the 3,500+ colors in our Beauti-Tone color system,” Slater says. “But if they didn’t match to one of those, the customer may go somewhere else.”

With the iVue color matching system, “we have literally millions of colors that we can choose from,” he says. “Because whatever you imagine, we can do now.”

‘Fundamentals of Color and Appearance’ is a one-day seminar that instructs quality control and assurance professionals, lab technicians, parts suppliers, pre-media and digital pressroom personnel and manufacturing specifiers on how to evaluate and approve colors in their workflows.  Taught by X-Rite color experts, FOCA provides practical information applicable to any industry dealing with color in easy-to-understand terms, including retail and apparel brands, business and consumer electronics, automotive, graphics arts, packaging and their related industries in plastics, coatings, and textile manufacturing.   X-Rite color experts will give attendees a solid foundation in the basics of color and appearance, and provide instruction on how to measure, view and understand color data.

FOCA’s fall dates and venues are as follows:

• Detroit, MI: 09/22/2011 (Detroit Metro Airport Marriott, Flynn Drive Romulus, MI)

• Atlanta, GA: 09/27/2011 (Courtyard Atlanta Airport North/Virginia Avenue, International Boulevard, Hapeville GA)

• Los Angeles, CA: 09/29/2011 (FIDM 17590 Gillette Avenue, Irvine CA)

• Boston, MA: 10/06/2011 (Residence Inn Boston Framingham, 400 Staples Drive, Framingham MA)

• Chicago, IL: 10/13/2011 (Residence Inn Chicago Schaumburg, 1610 McConnor Parkway, Schaumburg IL)

• Lyndhurst, NJ: 10/25/2011 (Courtyard Lyndhurst Meadowlands,1 Polito Avenue, Lyndhurst NJ)

As an attendee of FOCA you will receive the following:

• X-Rite Munsell Interactive Learning Kit
• Exclusive ‘Fundamentals of Color and Appearance’ book
• A discount voucher towards an X-Rite purchase
• Chance to win a free seat of quality assurance software
• Chance to win a free CAPSURE, a handheld color matching tool

‘Going Beyond Density: Optimal Process Control for Printing’ is a modular seminar featuring a morning and an afternoon session.  Participants can opt to attend one session (for $395) or both (for $595).

This seminar is designed for any press operators, quality assurance or quality control managers, production supervisors, and prepress professionals looking to better understand how to improve efficiencies in the pressroom. Topics will include color theory, how to shorten make-ready time, lower consumable costs, increase efficiency throughout your workflow, and increase the return on your recent investment in color management equipment. Attendees will gain a complete understanding of the best practices for process control, be introduced to the key concepts of the G7 methodology, and also improve their understanding on spot color management from Pantone.

The morning session will look at offset press process control with a particular focus on process color. The afternoon session will focus on flexographic press process control with a particular focus on packaging and spot colors, including Pantone.

Fall dates and venues for ‘Going Beyond Density’ are as follows:

• Baltimore, MD: 9/13/2011 Courtyard Baltimore BWI Airport 1671 West Nursery Road Linthicum, MD

• Los Angeles, CA: 9/15/2011 Los Angeles Airport Marriott 500 East First Street Long Beach, CA

• Chicago, IL: 10/4/2011 Spring Hill Suites Chicago 1550 McConnor Parkway Schaumburg IL

• Raleigh, NC: 10/6/2011 Courtyard Raleigh-Durham Airport 2001 Hospitality Court Morrisville, NC

All attendees of the ‘Going Beyond Density’ seminar will receive a discount voucher towards an X-Rite purchase and will have the ability to win an i1Publish Pro.

X-Rite will be opening main offices and training center in the Caohejing Hi-Tech Park of Shanghai, which also is the new location for a number of the world’s top multinational companies, including Cosma International in Canada, ITW Group and Grainger Inc. in the United States, and Faurecia Co. in France.

X-Rite Senior Field Marketing Manager Ellis Chung says the company hopes to move into its offices sometime in August. The new offices consolidate administrative, sales and marketing, training and education, and selected maintenance and repair services that were performed at several locations in China.  ”We are very pleased to relocate in the Caohejing Hi-Tech Park,” Chung says. “We expect to provide improved services and convenience to our customers in China with our new location, since all of our operations will be located under one roof.”

Gui Enliang, deputy general manager of Caohejing Hi-Tech Park Development Corp. says the park has more than 1,500 high-tech firms, including 500 funded by foreign investors. Fifty of the world’s top 500 multinational companies have set up 90 of the high-tech enterprises.

“The deals signed with foreign investors are part of the park’s effort to turn it into one of the city’s bases to develop the headquarters economy,” Gui is quoted in a story by China Daily <http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/regional/2011-07/07/content_12857426.htm> .

The park created sales of 218.9 billion yuan ($33.9 billion) in 2010, which are expected to rise up to 325 billion yuan ($50.3 billion) in 2015, Gui says.

ColorDesigner PLUS is a universal dispensing software containing formula books and dispensing functionality that can be complemented with palette search functionality, matching module, paint tips and many others. It helps build user and customer loyalty and repeat business.

This webinars address your challenges and offers a variety of solutions that deliver you the competitive edge.

Links to register:
6/28/2011
6/30/2011

Even though industries as varied as automotive, aerospace and pharmaceutical manufacturing do not seem to have much in common, they all share the basic need to measure color accurately and reliably so their products adhere to customers’ specifications.

Whether the challenge is to measure metallic paint on the side panel of a car or the upholstery of an airliner seat, instrument manufacturers have come up with sophisticated tools that can help virtually any company to learn and use the language of color for quality control.

Just like a workman needs the proper tools to complete a project, manufacturers should first spend time to understand from their customers exactly what needs to be measured and to what accuracy. Some common questions include:

Which color scale does the customer use? Instruments assign numerical values to the three basic elements of color: hue, chroma and value. There are three common standards that communicate a particular color in the vast universe of possible colors: CIE Xyz, CIE L*a*b* and CIE L*C*h°.

Complete article.

Research studies show that a rich, vibrant color is an indicator of quality, of freshness, of taste.  A brighter orange suggests better tasting orange juice. A brighter red indicates fresher tomatoes. Even with processed foods, that are dependent on image and brand loyalty, must maintain a consistent look and appearance every time.

Food is all about color, and that is why X-Rite is attending the 2011 IFT (Institute of Food Technologists) Expo in New Orleans June 11- 14.  X-Rite has hardware & software solutions for the food industry for color measurement.  So visit X-Rite at booth #4441 to learn more.

Need an example of what X-Rite can do? Read this case study (or read the blog post) to see what Barcadi Bottling Corp. had to say about  X-Rite’s Color i7 benchtop spectrophotometer and our Color iQC and NetProfiler software when making their Ready to Drink Mojito.

Learn more about X-Rite or for free attendee passes, visit us at www.xrite.com/ift.

Check out the 2011 IFT phone app as well to find X-Rite at the expo.

Don’t Just Look At It, Measure It!
New ways of quantifying effect colours
by Felix Schmollgruber, Matthew Adby

Research and development work is being carried out today in a number of companies around the world on practical ways to measure the four attributes of effect paints: multi-angle colour, texture, gloss and translucency. Given the major strides that instrument manufacturers have taken over the past decade in providing more accurate and less expensive equipment, it is certain that they will provide affordable tools for the total capture of appearance for effect paints in both benchtop and handheld versions.

Consumers all over the world appreciate the look of today’s effect paints. They give a new vibrancy and sales appeal to automobiles, appliances and many other products. In response to the increasing consumer demand, paint manufacturers are developing ever more complex chemistries for coatings. They go far beyond the first effect paints developed in the 1950s that were a simple addition of aluminium flakes to translucent paints. However, the development of second generation coatings has overtaken the methods by which these new paints can be analyzed and measured by users both in the automotive and other industries. While instrument manufacturers have made great strides over the past few years in basic techniques for monitoring effect paints, they concede that there is still much work to be done.

The good news is that instrumentation needed to deal with such paints largely exists today. Basically, instruments makers just need to integrate several technologies into single, affordable packages that are user friendly. Probably, the next five years will see the introduction of smaller, more affordable and more accurate instruments that will provide meaningful data for characterization and quality control of effect paints (see Figure 1).

Top priority: new measuring methods for effect paints

Developing new methods of measuring the effect paints is a top priority for major instrument manufacturers. Accurate and reliable data on effect paints is essential in virtually every step that a product takes from development to purchase by the consumer. Such information can be used by everyone from the product designer who needs a way to capture and render the appearance of effect paints on a 3-D digital model of a car to the retailer who wants to use computer-generated images to show potential customers how cars may appear in particular effect paints.

While instrument manufacturers may differ on the technical solutions to the problem, they all agree on one point: the way that people perceive the shimmer and shine of effect paints is highly complex (see Figure 2).  To reduce the total appearance, or the impact on or expectation of the observer, of a pearlescent body panel into a measurable quantity, instrument makers have to address two sides of the perception equation: instruments that collect useful data and mathematical models and algorithms that use the data to simulate human perception.

More than 50 years of research into how humans perceive the total appearance of an object has erected signposts for instrument makers to follow. The concept of total appearance was described by J. B. Hutchings [1] in his work on how appearance contributes to the overall sensation of products for the food industry. In a nutshell, Hutchings, and others, say that humans perceive the appearance of an object by taking into account its optical material properties, the illumination and viewing conditions and psycho-physiological factors. Research by R. S. Hunter [2] indicates that it is far too complicated to try to take into account all the factors that contribute to an object’s appearance, but it is feasible for instrument manufacturers to track certain specific attributes that prove valid in controlling product appearance.

The Commission internationale de l’éclairage (CIE) ( International Commission on Illumination) Report 175 from 2006 [3] suggests four categories of optical properties can be used for the measurement and specification of total appearance: colour, texture, gloss, and translucency. As stated previously, manufacturers already utilize technology that measures all of these attributes. However, the challenge for instrument makers is to integrate several technologies into one affordable package that can either be used by manufacturers on the shop floor or in the laboratory.

Agreed viewing and measurement conditions

Metallic and interference pigments can only be measured accurately with proper illumination angles and viewing geometries (see Figure 3). C. S. McCamy [4] in his article on measuring the appearance of metallic materials said that, since an instrument can only measure a finite number of geometries, it is critical for instrument makers and their customers to agree on representative viewing and measurement conditions for general appearance appraisal. Current standards by Deutsches Institut für Normung (German Standards Institution). (DIN) and ASTM International define five in-plane measurement geometries
for metallic pigments.

The ASTM E 2194 and DIN 6175-2 standards recommend that effect paints be measured with 45° directional illumination and five in-plane directional viewing angles for three characteristic angular regimes: 15° and 25° aspecular angles for the near specular region, 45° aspecular angle for the face region and 75° and 110° aspecular angles for the flop regime. The same standards can be met with instruments that use five illuminators and one viewing channel.

ASTM International, which develops and distributes voluntary consensus standards worldwide, has gone a step further by issuing additional geometries in the recommended measurement practice for companies that manufacture interference pigments or that purchase interference pigments for effect paints.

ASTM E 2539 – 08 standard [5] recommends an illuminator at 15° in addition to the 45° illuminator in ASTM E2194 and DIN6175-2. Two directional in-plane viewing geometries at +/- 15° aspecular angles from both illuminators are used to characterize the goniochromatic behaviour of the interference pigments. Implementation with the corresponding reverse geometry is possible (see Figure 4).

The DIN, CIE and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) are now considering the adoption of the specifications outlined in ASTM E 2539 – 08 as potential best practices for the measurement of interference pigments and effect paints.

“Click and render” function captures material characteristics

Recognizing the need for additional illumination and sensors in a handheld instrument, one company spent several years developing a new spectrophotometer that collects the necessary datapoints to meet the new ASTM standard. The instrument uses two illuminators and 11 detector channels that each measure 31 bands of the visible spectrum, from 400 to 700 nanometres.

The total of 19 geometries mentioned above prove to be very helpful for pigment identification and characterization or design rendering purposes, as they capture a more complete picture of the angularly dependent reflection
characteristics of the specimen.

Product designers today are using the above instrument as an appearance-measurement scanner to obtain data points necessary for visualization software packages.  For instance, industrial designers running one of the packages can use the “click and render” function with the new instrument to capture more accurately and recreate the material characteristics of metallic flake that can then be applied to digital prototypes in just minutes. Previously, designers have used a trial-and-error method to attempt to display true to life paint colour on digital prototypes, a lengthy and labour intensive process that often delivered less than satisfactory results (see Figure 5).

Designers and engineers can now apply very realistic, high quality representations of effect paints to their 3-D digital models, enabling product development teams efficiently to review projects and make better informed decisions.

As one would expect, instrument makers are seeking to mimic the capabilities of the human eye when it comes to measurement geometry – multi-angle colour or farfield appearance – and image resolution – surface- and subsurface-texture or near-field appearance.

Multi-angle colour can be determined at a distance from the sample where no texture variation is visible, hence its name “far-field appearance”. The Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) can be used for a general description of the angular light-scattering characteristics at this distance [6]. The new instrument with its 19 in and out-of-plane measurement geometries enables the acquisition of sub-sampled BRDF data (see Figure 6).

So called “material shaders”, in rendering software products, use BRDF to visualize effect paint appearance onto 3D computer graphics. All materials are dispersive, meaning that the response of any coating or material will change as a function of wavelength of light that illuminates it. For instance, a material’s tendency to bend light (its refractive index) is different for blue light than it is for red light. This change in bending power exists independently of the apparent colour of the material. All materials also have unique dielectric constants, which can be thought of as a way to measure their tendency to be dispersive.

The BRDF also addresses the way light scatters as it strikes an object. Blue light scatters differently than red light in the same object. Smaller particles of material scatter light of various wavelengths differently than larger particles. All materials scatter light to some degree, a property which is independent of the apparent colour of the material.

The use of BRDF to accurately and reliably characterize special effect coatings is not new. The function is the cornerstone of how large laboratory-bound instruments define and characterize effect coatings. But such instruments take many measurements over a long time frame and generate an unwieldy amount of data for practical use on the factory floor for quality control and statistical sampling.

Capturing more of the total appearance

Companies are shrinking the size of their instruments by trying to provide enough measurement geometries to enable the calculation of appropriate BRDFs. The new instrument applies statistical sampling to data derived from these geometries to enable analysts in paint labs to make some assumptions as to why there may be mismatches in the appearances of test surfaces. This trend towards capturing more of the total appearance of effect paints is expected to continue as technologies improve and drop in price.

For example, image capture appears to be a useful way to measure surface- and subsurface texture or near-field appearance of effect paints. Image-capture technology has seen three unmistakable trends over the past five years: reduction in size, improvement in quality and drop in price. One needs to look no farther than the camera embedded in a cell phone to witness this convergence of trends.

Instrument manufacturers are examining ways to apply image-capture technology to best practices in the measurement of near-field appearance. The initial view appears to be that image-capture technology is useful in quantifying the sparkle and coarseness of a paint’s appearance, but colour microscopic images are required for more technical applications such as flake identification or analysis of particle size.

Limited resolution

Some instrument makers have taken first steps by incorporating black-and-white digital cameras into their devices that can measure 12 mm x 9 mm images at a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels, which means that the camera can only distinguish images down to 20 microns in diameter. While these cameras yield images that record an overall sense of sparkle and coarseness, the degree of resolution is not sufficient reliably to measure particle size or identify the type of flake used in the formulation. For instance, one well-known effect pigment has flake sizes in its formulation that routinely are anywhere from 5 to 30 microns in diameter. Images taken at a 480 x 640 pixel resolution fail to record the sizeable number of flakes that fall below the 20 micron limit in that formulation. Without a finer resolution image, measurements taken with such cameras do not appear to produce results that meet required gauge repeatability and reproducibility studies for laboratory or shop floor use.

Furthermore, it appears that digital cameras that record images in colour are essential to distinguish between interference pigments that contain natural or synthetic particles in their formulations.

Seeing the sample as a multispectral image

Yet it is believed that image-capture technology will prove useful in the measurement of near- field appearance of effect paint. The forecast is based on experience acquired through the introduction of a new cell phonesized instrument that architects, contractors, interior designers, and DIY fans can use to identify precisely a colour and find its exact match in an electronic fan deck of thousands of colours.

This instrument employs image-based sample analysis, combined with independent illuminations from 27 LEDs that emit eight colours of the spectrum in different directions and thus accurately image and measure the colours of walls, carpets, fabrics with small patterns or any textured inspiration object. In approximately two seconds, the new technology accurately measures textured surfaces by detecting and compensating for shadows and gloss spots that are characteristic of 3D surfaces.

The test surface is also illuminated with light from the UV range to take into account optical brighteners. Algorithms in the instrument’s software then integrate all the data in effect to smooth out a rough surface and thus enable an accurate comparison to flat samples such as paint fan decks. Because this instrument has the advantage of “seeing” the sample as a multispectral image and not only as an average of the measurement area, the technology can ignore some areas of the image and emphasize others. It can identify and extract up to four dominant colours from the test surface. This discrimination between areas is one reason why the technology may also have an application in identifying and quantifying flakes and sparkles in effect paints.

Gloss, another of the four attributes for a total appearance, is important for manufacturing. Typically perceived as independent
of colour, gloss is associated with the capability of the sample surface to reflect light at or near the specular direction. Hunter distinguished between five different types of gloss, ranging from specular gloss to contrast loss or lustre, mostly defined by measurements taken at different angles in the scattering reflection indicatrix of the reflected light.

Optical qualities

Companies have built instruments to measure gloss through the use of highly directional illumination and viewing angles. It may also be possible to measure gloss attributes by analyzing the optical quality of images from test targets reflected at the sample surface. For instance, ASTM standard D4449 [7] defines certain viewing geometries for the assessment of distinctness of image and other gloss attributes near the specular direction, and Hunter proposed that a simple light source with a grid may serve as the image for the observation. Instrument makers will undoubtedly have to carry out development work to determine which method may be the best to incorporate into a device that measures the four attributes at once.

The final attribute for total appearance, translucency is often described by observers as ranging from transparency to opacity. In his 2004 thesis on acquisition techniques in computer graphics, M. Goesele [8] proposed a set of models for rendering translucent objects. He proposed using the diffuse point spread function at the sample surface as a way of determining translucency.

As with gloss, instrument manufacturers will have their work cut out to incorporate yet another measurement system for translucency into the device package.

It is also clear that any measurement package must also include flexibility in the type of light source that can be brought to bear on the test surface. Different applications may require different quality levels of light or light in specific spectral ranges.

References
[1] Hutchings J.B., “Food colour and appearance,” 2nd Edition, An Aspen
Publication, 1999.
[2] Hunter R.S., Harold R.W., The measurement of appearance,” 2nd
Edition, John Wiley & Sons.
[3] CIE Report 175, “A framework for the measurement of visual appearance,”
2006.
[4] McCamy C.S., “Observation and Measurement of the Appearance
of Metallic Materials,” Part I: Macro Appearance, Colour Research and
Application, Vol. 21, 292-304, 1996.
[5] ASTM Standard E 2539 – 08, “Standard Practice for Multiangle Color
Measurement of Interference Pigments.
[6] Nicodemus F.E. et al., “Geometrical considerations and nomenclature
for reflectance,” U.S. National Bureau of Standards, 1977.
[7] ASTM Standard D4449, “Standard test method for visual evaluation
of gloss differences between surfaces of similar appearance,” 1999.
[8] Goesele M., “New acquisition techniques for real objects and light
sources in computer graphics,” Thesis, Max Planck Institut für Informatik,
Saarbrücken, Germany, 2004.

Full Article here: Don’t Just Look At It, Measure It!