[dropcaps style=’2′]X-Rite, a global leader in color science and technology, and Pantone, are the winners of this year’s world-renowned iF Design Award for its Virtual Light Booth (VLB). The VLB is part of a comprehensive solution that brings a new level of accuracy and realism to the capture, communication and digital presentation of physical materials in the virtual world. A team of 63 judges, made up of independent experts from all over the world, reviewed a total of 6,400 entries and selected the VLB as a winner in the product discipline.[/dropcaps]
“It’s a great honor to win the prestigious iF Design Award for our Total Appearance Capture solution for the second consecutive year,” said Dr. Francis Lamy, executive vice president and chief technology officer, X-Rite. “Total Appearance Capture, of which VLB is a key component, is the culmination of sixty years of color and appearance science. I’m very proud of the entire TAC development team that has brought this innovation to life.”
X-Rite’s Total Appearance Capture (TAC) ecosystem addresses a key challenge in product design – the ability to accurately capture and virtualize today’s increasingly complex materials such as special effect paints and synthetic fabrics. The VLB is the industry’s first 3D visualization environment for evaluating material appearance. It allows users to accurately and efficiently visualize and compare 3D digital material renderings side-by-side with physical samples under a variety of lighting conditions. This helps ensure consistency between digital prototypes and final physical products. It empowers designers to make more informed material selection decisions reducing approval cycles and time to market.
The full TAC ecosystem enables product designers, 3D artists, material specifiers and marketers to create digital materials representations that simulate physical appearance characteristics such as color, texture, gloss, refraction, transparency, special effects (sparkles) and reflection properties. This helps streamline the overall design and manufacturing process and deliver the most compelling, photorealistic 3D visuals possible. The TAC ecosystem is comprised of the 2017 iF DESIGN AWARD winning TAC7 scanner, PANTORA Material Hub desktop application, and the VLB.