PigmentViewer Instructions

PigmentViewer App

 

Purpose of the app

PigmentViewer is a virtual fandeck for the visual presentation and the side-by-side inspection of the pigment products of Sun Chemical, comprising effect and color pigments for different industries. Furthermore, it can be used to explore examples of their usage in a wide range of formulations. 

By using innovative image rendering technology, the app displays the appearance of our effect and color pigments in various applications and formulations, emphasizing the individual sparkle and flop behavior of effect pigments. The visual experience is far beyond photo or video demonstrations. 

Move your mobile device just like you would do with a real test panel in hands. Assess the color travel of the effect pigments during flop movement. Investigate the hiding properties of products by observing applications over black and white substrates. See the color pigments acting in an aluminum reduction and explore interactions of pigments in formulation examples. 

Search for pigments of your choice by using multiple filters offering many industry-relevant criteria. Group and save your personal collections. Study interactively the visual appearance and compare products of interest side by side, as you are used to. Obtain technical data, and the coloristic behavior plotted in convenient professional diagrams. 
 
Important: To work properly, the app needs access to the Sun Chemical pigments database, and hence, you need to be connected to the internet. 

 

Imaging technology

The visual representation of the appearance is produced by digital rendering using virtual material data. This data is generated based on physical measurements of reflectance, color and optical sparkle behavior of physical samples. All data were acquired gonio- and wavelength-dependent, yielding data sets for a most accurate representation of the optical behavior of each sample. 

The manual tilting of the device simulates an angular movement of a physical sample of approximately 60° and it is synchronized with the gyro sensor of the mobile device. The geometrical sequence is set to vary from (close to) perpendicular irradiation and observation (“face angle”) down to inclined irradiation and observation (“flop angle”). The texture size in the representation of simulated effect applications is scaled to be close to realism on a typical mobile phone monitor (6 inch). 

 

 

Instructions for use

The app is structured into three main windows: “Filters”, “Lists”, and “Viewer”. Imagine them to be ordered side by side. Starting the app will open the “Filters” window by default. 

Move between the three main windows by swiping or clicking the arrow buttons alternatively.

 

1. The “Filters” window

The app starts on the leftmost “Filters” window, offering filters for the pigment product or formulation search. Selected filters will persist after closing the app.
Upon choosing filters, the number of results is accordingly reduced. The number of results matching your current selection of filters is shown automatically by an indicator number in the upper right corner. 

If you have already set filters before, you may use the 3-dots menu button to Reset Filters. Additionally, use the 3-dots menu button to enter the “Settings” (see below). Here you can personalize the displayed list of filter types.

 

2. The “Lists” window

Here you can organize your personal pigments collections, as well as select and download the pigments you want to display and inspect in a visual comparison.

 The “Lists” main window contains four different lists: “Products”, “My List”, “Bookmarks”, and “Recent”. Select one of them by clicking on it in the “Lists” selection bar.

The “Products” list contains the latest filter result, i.e., all pigments or formulations matching the current filter settings. If no filter is selected, the “Products” list contains all available pigments or formulations. Whether any filters are set or not is indicated by the colored dot close to the list title “Products”.

The “My List” is a container for a quick, otherwise unstructured pigment collection. You can easily add or drop any products to and from this collection by using the +My and the -My button from any other list.

The “Bookmarks” list shows all your bookmarked pigments and formulations, sorted into custom-named lists of bookmarks. You can easily bookmark or un-bookmark each pigment by clicking the bookmark icon behind every pigment or formulation name in the lists. If you have preselected some pigments into the “My List” you can use the 3-dots menu in “My List” to make them a new list of bookmarks. The 3-dots menu in “Bookmarks” offers commands for organizing your lists of bookmarks.

 “Recent” is a history list comprising the last ten pigments or formulations viewed.

In all lists there are one, two, or three download status indicators behind every entry. Each indicator refers to one of multiple available Application Types of that product. A gray download indicator means that the application is still ready for download, a green check mark indicates that the corresponding digitalization has already been downloaded to the local storage of your mobile device. In the “Products” list you can select multiple pigments for a collective download. Use touch & hold (“long press”) on a pigment or formulation name to select, then every further click on other list entries will build up the queue. A second click on a list entry will deselect it from the queue. The collective download always comprises all application types that are available for each product selected. In the “Bookmark” list, a download of the entire list is available via the 3-dots menu.

During the collective download process your device is blocked for other activities. The auto-lock mode is deactivated, to allow controlling this possibly time- and data-consuming process. If necessary, use the Cancel button in the upper right corner to stop and exit the collective download process and mode.

3. The “Viewer” window

To select a pigment for displaying in the “Viewer”, click on the pigment name in one of the lists. If applicable, you will be asked for the Application Type wanted. If necessary, the corresponding visualization will be downloaded, before it’s displayed in the “Viewer”. Once downloaded, the visualization will be displayed directly.
Every visualization that has been downloaded is kept in the local storage of your device. For a clean-up use the Storage Cleaning feature in “Settings” (see below).

When you enter the “Viewer” window, multiple control icons are displayed for a short time (ca. 1 second) and then fade out. To show the controls again, just tap once on the screen. Another tap will fade out the controls again.

As you tilt your device mechanically back and forth the displayed appearance of the product changes in correspondence to the flop behaviour of a physical sample moved in the same way.

The triangular tilt indicator running along the left edge of the “Viewer” screen is a measure for the tilting status and movement of your device. The indicator cannot be faded out.

We advise using a high screen brightness for optimum color and effect experience.

In the “View” mode, there are several buttons to access advanced features. The buttons on the top of the screen give access to more information about the displayed products.

The leftmost icon opens an overlay with detailed information on the products that are currently in the viewer. The content shown depends on your Login status (see ”Settings”). This overlay is also useful for recalling the exact names of the pigments that are currently in the “Viewer”. Press the “X” in the upper right corner of the data overlay to get back to the “Viewer”.

The three other icons direct you to the data plots in the “Diagrams” sub-window:

• a*b*-plane of the CIELAB color space (CIELAB diagram)
• Chroma vs. hue (degrees) diagram
• Spectral reflectance diagram

All three diagrams provide interactive graphs with numerical data and more information by clicking on the plotted data. You can also select other application types, if available. However, please note that this selection only affects the “Diagram” data, it does not trigger the loading of the related imaging data into the “Viewer”. In two diagrams you can additionally select the measuring angle. This is only relevant for application types with an angular dependent appearance. Non-effect shades are plotted for the 45° geometry only. 

Press the “X” in the upper right corner of the “Diagram” sub-window to get back to the “Viewer” main window.

The group of buttons on the left and right of the “Viewer” screen allow control over the shown application type and addition/removing products from the “Viewer” screen.

5. Settings

You can navigate to the “Settings” sub-window via the 3-dots-menus. 

“Settings” offers additional control over the app and the corresponding content. Here, you can control filters and the storage used by the app. If necessary, you can also delete downloaded product visualizations here. 
Also, here you can login to your Sun Chemical account. When logged in you will get more technical data and even access to documents, e.g., the Technical Data Sheets (TDS). Your account credentials match the ones for PigmentFinder (https://colormaterials.sunchemical.com/by-product/products/). Creating an account can also be done there. 
 
Furthermore, the Instructions button opens information on the use, the application’s structure, and technical background of the PigmentViewer app. 

Contact opens a link to the contact form on the Sun Chemical website. 

 

Additional information is provided under 

• Data Protection Statement
• Legal Notice
• Disclaimer 

As the PigmentViewer app will be subject of continuous improvement, the version of your current installation is indicated at the very bottom of the “Settings” window. 

Terms, specifications, and definitions used

The criteria used for filtering are typical terms used in the industries dealing with the coloration of materials like e.g. coatings, paints, inks, plastics, cosmetics, etc.   

The products in the app are named according to the nomenclature of Sun Chemical. 

Color value data are given as data points in typical diagrams with further information within pop-ups inside the diagrams. The color values agree with the CIELAB (1976) color space formalism (ISO 11664-4). They are given for standard illumination D65 and 10° standard observer. 

The spectral reflectance data are scaled in relative numbers, i.e., “1.0” is equivalent to “100%”. As usual, this number refers to the reflectance of the so-called ideal diffuse reflector. 

In the case of effect pigments and metallic reductions the color values are given for the typical measuring geometries with irradiating at 45° and measuring under 6 in-plane angles, -15° to +110°. The nomenclature used is according to ISO 18314-1. 

The visual appearance of the pigments in various application types is presented dynamically by displaying the variation in optical impression that is caused by a mechanical tilting movement of the pigmented sample under a fixed illumination. For the visual representation we use a stack of 40 images. Each image is digitally rendered based on the optical material data and its position in a sequence of tilt angles. 

 

The possible application types and formulations given in the app are (availability depends on pigment type): 

 

Effect pigments

- Black reduction, i.e., 95:5 combination of pigment with carbon black (Orion Carbon FW200); visibly hiding. 

- Mass tone over black/white substrate; the pigment weight concentration, the dry film thickness, and the color data are given numerically in the pop-ups inside the CIELAB-diagram (see above). 

 

Color pigments

- White reduction, i.e., pigment combined with titanium dioxide adjusted to match standard depth of shade (SD) of 1/3 (acc. to ISO 18314-2); visibly hiding. The reduction ratio (Pigment : TiO2) is given in the pop-ups inside the CIELAB-diagram (see below). The number is a relative measure for the tinting strength of the product. For some inorganic color pigments, the shade is matched to SD 1/9, instead, also noted in the pop-ups. 

- 2nd white reduction is given for scattering pigments typically used in solid reductions; matched to SD 1/9 (for some inorganic color pigments the shade is matched to SD 1/25, instead). 

- Metallic reduction, limited to transparent color pigments with low scattering and thus suitable for effect applications; i.e. 80:20 pigment combined with aluminum cornflake pigment. 

- Mass tone over black/white substrate; the pigment weight concentration and the dry film thickness as well as the color data are given numerically in the pop-ups inside the CIELAB-diagram. 

 

Formulated Shades / Shades / Formulations

- Visually hiding representation of a combination of multiple pigments to create acolor shade. There can be different formulations, i.e., combinations of pigments, according to the desired usage. The Pigment weight concentrations for each formulation is given in the overlay (“Viewer” screen). 

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The PigmentViewer app was conceived, functionalized, structured, and designed by Colors & Effects, Dr. Georg Silber and Dr. Thomas Frey, Ludwigshafen, Germany. Jose Yan, Colors & Effects Shanghai, contributed early programming as part of the feasibility study. 
As of 2021, the application and its development are coordinated by the colorimetry team of Sun Chemical Colors & Effects GmbH under supervision of Dr. Max Mussotter.