Patent ID: 8270699
Filing Date: 2012-09-18
Classification: G01J,G01N,G06T

Abstract:
1. A method for obtaining appearance characteristics of a target coating containing effect pigments, said method comprising the steps of: a) providing illuminations to the target coating at a fixed illumination angle and at varying illumination intensities; b) selecting an effective illumination intensity under which the effect pigments of the target coating exhibit varying brightness; c) capturing at least one image of the target coating under the effective illumination intensity using an imaging device; d) identifying from the image by a computing device, appearance features comprising a set of bright features from bright areas of said image where the effect pigments exhibit highest brightness with pixels having image intensity level equal to or greater than a first threshold level, a set of intermediate features from intermediate areas of the image where the effect pigments exhibit intermediate brightness with pixels having image intensity level equal to or greater than a second threshold level, and a set of dark features from dark areas of the image having image intensity below a third threshold level where the target coating is essentially free of detectable said effect pigments, wherein all pixels or regions of pixels of the image having image intensity below said third threshold level are identified as the dark features; e) generating individual feature values based on the appearance features, wherein said individual feature values comprise fractional areas of the image having image intensities above said first threshold level based on said set of bright features, fractional areas of the image having image intensities at said second threshold level based on said set of intermediate features, and fractional areas of the image having image intensities below said third threshold level based on said set of dark features; and f) generating the appearance characteristics based on the individual feature values.