Canon today announced the development of material appearance image-processing technology that, through the acquisition of material appearance information using digital cameras, enables printing that faithfully recreates such material appearance characteristics as gloss, plasticity and transparency, qualities that change in appearance depending on the orientation of lighting or the angle from which an object is viewed. Canon’s newly developed material appearance image-processing technology makes use of multiple Canon digital cameras, which are used to capture images of the target object, facilitating the digitization of such material appearance information as subtle surface contours and gloss. The digitized material appearance information is then used to faithfully reproduce the material appearance properties of the original object using a (UV-curable) printing technology that is optimally controlled in accordance with its print characteristics.
Capitalizing on Canon’s expertise in image input and output devices, material appearance image-processing technology makes possible not only the high-definition representation of color characteristics, but also the printing of various material appearance qualities, such as those of metal, cloth and other materials. Material appearance characteristics are those qualities that determine an object’s look and feel, such as gloss, plasticity, surface contours and transparency. The acquisition of this information, such as surface contours and reflectance, in addition to color data, is essential for reproducing an object’s texture in photographs and other forms of printout.
