ments characterization is using complementary in-
formation about pigment flakes density, distribution
and orientation in the coating layer. To this end,
we perform this analysis using a gonioreflectome-
ter for in-plane and out-of-plane geometries of fixed
viewing and varying illumination angles. Next, we
propose image-based coating characterization method
that counts numbers of effective pigments and their
coverage area. Our method allows robust discrimina-
tion of different pigment materials as well as the same
material with different coating technology.
Our paper first discusses a prior work in the field
in Section 2. Then the analyzed coating samples
and acquisition method are introduced in Section 3.
Method of pigment flakes detection is outlined in Sec-
tion 4 and its results are given in Section 5. Applica-
tion of the method to spatial uniformity analysis of
coatings is presented in Section 6, while the Section 7
concludes the paper.
2 RELATED WORK
One of the first survey works on application of angle-
dependent optical effects deriving from submicron
structures of films and pigments was presented in
(Pfaff and Reynders, 1999). A detailed overview of
special effect pigments is given in (Maile et al., 2005)
and (Pfaff, 2008).
Before considering to use any novel measure-
ment geometries, one can validate current industrial
standards (DIN (DIN, 1999) and ASTM (E2194-12,
2012),(E2539-12, 2012) used for the measurement
of appearance stemming from past research of gloss
and chromatic appearance (Hunter, 1937), (McCamy,
1996). This led to development of industrial multi-
angle gonioreflectometers: MA68 and MA98 by X-
rite, BYK-mac by Gardner, and MultiFX10 by Dat-
acolor as described more in detail in (Perales et al.,
2013). These devices typically capture between 5–12
in-the-plane geometries and BYK-mac even allows
pigment texture measurement using a built-in camera.
However, when it comes to effect coatings character-
ization, these devices, due to limited set of measure-
ment geometries, often struggle to identify individual
coatings reliably (G
´
omez et al., 2016).
A wide body of research work has been devoted to
analysis of bidirectional reflectance distribution func-
tions (BRDF) (Nicodemus et al., 1977) and chromatic
properties of effect coatings. Different measurement
geometries were analyzed in (Kirchner and Cramer,
2012), (Ferrero et al., 2015). A BRDF characteri-
zation of effect coatings using a half-difference pa-
rameterization of individual flakes was presented in
(Ferrero et al., 2013). The same parameterization was
applied in (Strothk
¨
amper et al., 2016) to predict the
global color appearance of coated surfaces and to an-
alyze color estimation using multi-angle spectropho-
tometers (Ferrero et al., 2015). Characterization of
diffraction pigments was studied in (Ferrero et al.,
2016).
Method of BRDF measurement and modelling
of effect coatings was introduced in (Mih
´
alik and
ˇ
Durikovi
ˇ
c, 2013). Kim et al. (Kim et al., 2010)
proposed a novel image-based method of pearlescent
paints spectral BRDF measurement using a dedicated
goniometric setup relying on a spherical sample and
derived a non-parametric bivariate reflectance model.
Lans et al. (Lans et al., 2012) presented an empiri-
cal approach to the realistic modelling of special ef-
fect flakes fitting patch-based model parameters us-
ing sparse texture data obtained by a portable multi-
angle spectrophotometer. In (Rump et al., 2009) were
presented extensions towards gonioapparent coatings
texture measurement and modelling using bidirec-
tional texture function (BTF) (Dana et al., 1999).
Although this research advanced considerably an
understanding of the processes driving the reflectance
and chromatic appearance of effect coatings, we are
not aware of any technique simultaneously analyzing
both spatial and gonioapparent appearance of effect
coatings at pigment size level.
3 COATING SAMPLES
ACQUISITION
Effect pigments can be, based on the principle of
chroma and sparkling effect generation, roughly di-
vided into three categories (Maile et al., 2005): metal-
lic , interference, and diffractive pigments. We tested
eight effect coatings featuring four different pigment
materials and different coating technology as shown
in inset images in Fig. 2:
• Polychromatic (MultiFlect
R
) – a polychromatic
coating including a diffraction pigment varying
in liquefying agent (water - poly1,poly3, solvent
- poly2) and its density (medium - poly1, poly2
and high - poly3).
• Ultra thin pigment (Zenexo
R
) a high-sparkle con-
trast, pearlescent coating including an ultra-thin,
colored aluminium pigment: UTP.
• Aluminum – coating including aluminum flakes
of silverdollar morphology: solvent (alu1) and
water-based (alu2).
• Mica – coating including white mica flakes flakes:
solvent (mica1) and water–based (mica2).
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