On Visual Attractiveness of Anisotropic Effect Coatings

Abstract

With the global trend in customer preference towards achromatic car colors, color designers in coating industry strive to create novel design-critical appearances based on novel effect pigments. At microscopic scale, the pigment particles allow to create specific optical effects like sparkle under directed lighting along with a specific texture in diffuse lighting, while at a macroscopic scale they create the appearance of angle-dependent color and a strong luminance contrast. Although individual particles in effect coatings exhibit anisotropic behavior, the majority of effect coatings exhibit isotropic appearance at a macroscopic scale due to a random orientation of the particles which can be explained with the manufacturing process of the coating. This paper demonstrates an visual appearances achievable by using anisotropic effect coatings based on magnetic pigments. In a psychophysical study, we assessed visual attractiveness of these coatings on a car-like shape for different viewing angles.