GRAND RAPIDS, MI—X-Rite Incorporated, a global leader in color science and technology, and its subsidiary Pantone LLC, today announced a next-generation family of portable multi-angle spectrophotometers that aims to set a new standard for characterizing effect finishes. The new MA-T12, a 12-angle device, and the MA-T6, a six-angle device, combine color imaging and multi-angle spectral measurement to quantify color, sparkle and coarseness. These new devices allow customers to more precisely define and control the extreme effect finishes now commonly used in the automotive, plastics, coating and cosmetics industries to reduce defects and achieve more efficient quality assurance.
Color is a decisive buying factor when it comes to the purchase of new products—from cars, to consumer electronics and household appliances. Consistency of color across different components of a product strongly influences a customer’s perception of quality. In today’s competitive marketplace, manufacturers increasingly use extreme effect finishes to differentiate themselves. For example, in the automotive industry, approximately 70 percent of new vehicles use effect finishes that include aluminums, pearls or special effect pigments like Xirallic. As a result, measurement of color alone is no longer sufficient to completely characterize these materials, or to ensure consistency across adjacent parts, such as car bumpers and body panels. This is especially true when parts are manufactured by different suppliers at multiple locations. The new MA-T family is designed to help manufacturers set, communicate and ensure conformance with global standards for effect finishes—encompassing color, sparkle and coarseness—to achieve a new level of consistency and harmony.
“The MA-T family represents a significant advance over current multi-angle measurement technology,” said Chris Winczewski, vice president, strategy and product planning, X-Rite. “The combination of a color camera and up to 12 angles of measurement gives manufacturers and their supply chain partners an entirely new level of sophistication in the definition and measurement of even today’s most extreme effect finishes. This new technology delivers results that more closely approximate the way the human eye perceives color, reducing approval cycles, minimizing costly rework, and accelerating time-to-market.”
The devices have an ergonomic design with a centrally located aperture and positioning pins to ensure stable measurement. A touch screen navigation makes operating the devices simple and intuitive. A real-time preview of measurement areas or “check zones” ensures accurate targeting, streamlining the overall measurement process.
Both models feature an RGB camera and white light illumination to ensure the most accurate capture of color, sparkle and coarseness and quantifiable results that match the way the human eye perceives color. The MA-T6 measures color from six different viewing angles while the MA-T12 offers 12 angles of measurement. This enables the most complete characterization of today’s extreme effect materials.
The MA-T family interfaces with new AutoQC software, a cloud-based solution that ensures that color standards, measurement procedures, and data are clearly communicated and effectively managed across distributed supply chains. New visual tools, including performance trend charts and stored images of specific measurements, enable real-time performance monitoring and provide actionable insights that speed up the process of troubleshooting out-of-tolerance product.
The MA-T12 and MA-T6 are both backwards compatible with X-Rite MA68 and MA94, MA96, MA98 portable multi-angle spectrophotometers, ensuring agreement with legacy data.