Projector-Based Color Simulator for Print Industry

In this paper, we propose a new projector-based display which can perform the color simulator for print industry. The proposed color simulator can change the color of print by projecting the image onto the print. A color of print can be matched to the desired color by projecting the image which is calculated to minimize the color difference between the colors of target print and current print. This current print is measured by digital camera or digital scanner. Ideally, spectral camera or scanner is expected to be used for accurate color simulation on the current print, but it costs a lot for practical application. Therefore, in this paper, we compared two methods for color matching, one is the tristimulus-based method with XYZ tristimulus values and the other is the spectral-based method with spectral values. As the result of computer simulation, the average color difference ∆E*94 was 0.27 by the spectral-based method between the reflected radiance from the color of target print and the color of current print with projector, and the average color difference ∆E*94 was 2.09 by the tristimulus-based method. The efficiency of the proposed system is verified by the subjective evaluation between the target and current print with appropriate image projection.