Visual gloss is a multidimensional perceptual attribute and its instrumental evaluation is considerably complex. Nevertheless, visual gloss plays an important role in the judgement of visual appearance of products. According to Hunter (1937), at least six perceptual attributes should be considered for a complete evaluation. Most of these attributes were initially determined with visual evaluations and subsequently with instruments using photodiode sensors that measure the amount of reflected light at multiple geometries to quantize aspects of gloss. However, partly due to the higher amount of information available to the human visual system compared to the gloss meter, there is only a weak correlation between human gloss perception and industrial gloss instruments. For this reason, these instruments are often combined with visual assessment for quality control e.g. at the end of production lines. Recently, the advancing technological developments in imaging hardware and software enabled the introduction of imaging sensors into gloss meters. This majorly increases the amount of captured information. In this study, a camera-based gloss meter design is adapted to include the measurement of contrast gloss and to study its influence on glossiness. Indeed, despite the considerable impact of contrast on gloss, as described by the contrast gloss formula developed by Leloup et al., this is not included yet in current gloss meters. The implementation of a contrast evaluation requires several additional sensor calibration procedures. Furthermore the difference in illumination levels, focus levels and viewing distance between instrumental evaluation conditions and realistic visual assessment conditions must be accounted for.
Since about five years, Lighting has become a partly required and partly elective course within the Energy program of the Master of Engineering Technology at KU Leuven. While the theoretical part of the course is lectured to the entire audience, an increased emphasis has been placed on an individual evaluation of the students for the laboratory module. In order to admit several students simultaneously to the laboratory, multiple constructions of the same laboratory setup are requested. Therefore, cheap alternatives to the scientific metrology instrumentation, which still guarantee that the students get acquainted with optical metrology techniques and general radiometric and photometric quantities, are needed. In this paper, the design of an inexpensive integrating sphere setup is presented, enabling the optical characterization of light sources. Instead of using an expensive sphere with magnesium oxide or barium sulfate coating, a cheap polystyrene sphere is employed. In combination with a low-cost USB spectroradiometer, the system enables the direct measurement of the spectral radiant power of a light source. In addition, the luminous flux, luminous efficacy, colour coordinates, colour temperature, and colour rendering index can be determined. The equipment used, the experimental procedure, as well as some typical measurement results are presented.
Among the complete bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF), visual gloss is principally related to physical reflection characteristics located around the specular reflection direction. This particular part of the BRDF is usually referred to as the specular peak. A good starting point for the physical description of gloss could be to measure the reflection properties around this specular peak. Unfortunately, such a characterization is not trivial, since for glossy surfaces the width of the specular peak can become very narrow (typically a full width at half maximum inferior to 0.5° is encountered). In result, new BRDF measurement devices with a very small solid angle of detection are being introduced. Yet, differences in the optical design of BRDF measurement instruments engender different measurement results for the same specimen, complicating direct comparison of the measurement results. This issue is addressed in this paper. By way of example, BRDF measurement results of two samples, one being matte and the other one glossy, obtained by use of two high level goniospectrophotometers with a different optical design, are described. Important discrepancies in the results of the glossy sample are discussed. Finally, luminance maps obtained from renderings with the acquired BRDF data are presented, exemplifying the large visual differences that might be obtained. This stresses the metrological aspects that must be known for using BRDF data. Indeed, the comprehension of parameters affecting the measurement results is an inevitable step towards progress in the metrology of surface gloss, and thus towards a better metrology of appearance in general.
The European Metrology Research Program (EMRP) is a metrology-focused program of coordinated Research and
Development (RD) funded by the European Commission and participating countries within the European Association
of National Metrology Institutes (EURAMET). It supports and ensures research collaboration between them by
launching and managing different types of project calls. Within the EMRP Call 2012 "Metrology for Industry", the joint
research project (JRP) entitled "Multidimensional Reflectometry for Industry" (xD-Reflect) was submitted by a
consortium of 8 National Metrology Institutes (NMIs) and 2 universities and was subsequently funded. The general
objective of xD-Reflect is to meet the demands from industry to describe the overall macroscopic appearance of modern
surfaces by developing and improving methods for optical measurements which correlate with the visual sensation being
evoked. In particular, the project deals with the "Goniochromatism", "Gloss" and "Fluorescence" properties of dedicated
artifacts, which will be investigated in three main work packages (WP). Two additional transversal WP reinforce the
structure: "Modelling and Data Analysis" with the objective to give an irreducible set of calibration schemes and
handling methods and "Visual Perception", which will produce perception scales for the different visual attributes.
Multidimensional reflectometry involves the enhancement of spectral and spatial resolution of reference
gonioreflectometers for BRDF measurements using modern detectors, conoscopic optical designs, CCD cameras, line
scan cameras, and modern light sources in order to describe new effects like sparkle and graininess/coarseness. More
information and updated news concerning the project can be found on the xD-Reflect website http://www.xdreflect.eu/.
The bidirectional scatter distribution function (BSDF) characterizes the scattering properties of a material for any angle
of illumination or viewing, and offers as such a complete description of the spatial optical characteristics of the surface.
An accurate determination of the BSDF is important in many scientific domains, such as computer graphics, architectural
and lighting design, and the field of material appearance characterization (e.g. the color and gloss properties).
Many BSDF measuring instruments have been reported in the literature. The majority of these instruments are
goniometric measurement devices, by use of which the BSDF is determined by scanning all incoming and outgoing light
flux directions in sequence. For this, the sample, detector, and/or source perform relative individual movements. In
result, the major restriction of this type of instruments constitutes the measurement time, which may run to the order of
several hours depending on the accuracy (angular resolution) and the complexity (spectral coverage, absolute
measurement capability, etc.) of the reported measurement data.
This paper describes the results of a feasibility study, in which an alternative goniometric measurement system is
designed, enabling to acquire the photometric BSDF in a full three-dimensional (3D) space, with a high mechanical
angular resolution (0.1°) in a time efficient way (about 30 minutes). A near-field goniophotometer, originally intended to
measure luminance intensity distributions and luminous fluxes of light sources and luminaires, was converted for this
purpose. Besides a discussion of the design and the measurement procedure, test sample measurements are presented to
illustrate the versatility of the device.
KEYWORDS: Bidirectional reflectance transmission function, Reflectivity, Data modeling, Ray tracing, Laser induced damage, Near field optics, Light sources, Light emitting diodes, Prototyping, Near field
The reliability of ray tracing simulations is strongly dependent on the accuracy of the input data such as the bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF). Software developers offer the possibility to implement BRDF data in different ways, ranging from simple predefined functions to detailed tabulated data. The impact of the accuracy of the implemented reflectance model on ray tracing simulations has been investigated. A light-emitting diode device including a frequently employed diffuse reflector [microcellular polyethylene terephthalate (MCPET)] was constructed. The luminous intensity distribution (LID) and luminance distribution from a specific viewpoint were measured with a near-field goniophotometer. Both distributions were also simulated by use of ray tracing software. Three different reflection models of MCPET were introduced, varying in complexity: a diffuse model, a diffuse/specular model, and a model containing tabulated BRDF data. A good agreement between the measured and simulated LID was found irrespective of the applied model. However, the luminance distributions only corresponded when the most accurate BRDF model was applied. This proves that even for diffuse reflective materials, a simple BRDF model may only be employed for simulations of the LID; for evaluation of luminance distributions, more complex models are needed.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.