Translucent materials, which are omnipresent in everyday life, appear to be relatively simple materials. However, they have the characteristic of changing colour or appearance depending on the thickness and surface finish considered. And on most common objects these variations can be perceived.
In this industry, it is common practice to produce “masterbatches”, small samples with or without different thicknesses, to give an idea of observable variations in appearance. But with the wide variety of shapes possible for these materials, it becomes necessary to produce physical samples to really get a feel for the final appearance.
In this study, three different samples were submitted to the Eclat Digital team with three quite distinct behaviours. Firstly in terms of colorimetry but also in terms of diffusion properties: transparent, translucent or opaque.
The question is: can we predict the exact appearance of a given shape with these materials without using physical samples?
By using an internal protocol, they extracted the intrinsic optical responses of each material allowing these properties to be applied to any shape. Here, for example, with water bottles in a lightbooth.
Using the Photo-Render Comparison service, a visual validation in a controlled context can be offered to confirm the accuracy of the results.
This approach can be generalised to all shapes or contexts and reduces the need to manufacture a multitude of physical samples.
