Multi‐angle measurement device for analysis of coating appearances

Abstract

AbstractMaterial appearance is an important factor in product design because it tends to attract consumers. Effect coatings that contain aluminum and interference pigments are widely used in automobiles. The color and sparkle values of these coatings vary with the observation angle. Several methods have been proposed to study these variations with respect to the observation angle. However, a high angular resolution is required to understand human perception. Thus, we developed a measurement device that can analyze the color and sparkle values at a high angular resolution for multiple angles. The device captures the sample surface by using a line scan spectral camera. Because the lighting device rotates around the sample while the line scan camera is capturing images, each scan line that makes up the image contains different angle information. A comparison was performed among the results obtained from this study, a commercially available device, and a subjective value of sparkle perception. Twenty samples were required to confirm that the sparkle values calculated from this study correlated closely with the subjective scores. In addition, the difference between the color values obtained from the BYK‐mac i spectrophotometer and the proposed technique was less than 3.5 (ΔE00). The findings of this study will help in developing the appearance of effective coatings. In addition, using evaluation values, quality control, and improvement are possible after mass production of coatings.