3DS-colorimeter based on a mobile phone camera for industrial applications

Colour gives an essential finishing touch to many products. Consumers find it as an important factor, for example, when selecting doors, furniture, parquet and coated metal products. Currently, colour evaluation is often carried out by looking at the product. Since people's memory for an exact colour is poor, this method often produces unsatisfactory results in industrial quality control. In this paper, we discuss how to solve this problem by the use of a colour measurement technology for mobile phones equipped with a suitable accessory. Mobile phones provide a suitable monitor platform even for laymen as people are increasingly using their mobile devices for purposes of entertainment, communication and business, thus making them a familiar device to use. Our 3DS-colorimeter is a new, handheld, low-cost consumer/industrial-level prototype combining both a colorimeter feature and 3D surface measurement feature. In this paper, we describe its colorimeter features shortly and demonstrate its performance in measurement repeatability and colorimetric accuracy. As an application example, we show its usefulness for monitoring the colour appearance of painted doors. This study indicates that the 3DS-colorimeter is applicable to industrial quality control.