Best Practice for Visual Assessment

Controlled viewing cabinets and expertise

Best Practice Visual Assessment

Colour measurement helps organisations use traceable colour data to communicate colour between colleagues and supply partners, but the ultimate goal is a product that is accurate and pleasing to the observer.
 
Visual assessment is a part of the colour supply process that is often somewhat overlooked. Humans assume that what they see is truth, the eye is not an effective tool for identifying or differentiating between illuminants. Assessing and specifying colour under imperfect conditions is asking a lot of an already subjective system
 
In order to ensure that colleagues can accurately assess the colour and appearance of products when selecting and specifying colour and to minimise the risk of disagreement when discussing or approving colour with suppliers, standard illuminants and best practice must be used.

As with a colour measuring instrument this aims to control the colour vision triangle as much as possible, controlling the illuminant/s and taking all reasonably practical steps to inform and control for the observer.

Konica Minota Sensing offer a range of solutions for controlled viewing cabinets including both traditional fluorescent tube based systems and innovative customisable LED based systems. Our experienced teams can assist you in developing processes that help operators correctly perform visual assessments, minimising the time and cost wasted in subjective opinions.

Common Pitfalls

  • Customers making decisions about colour samples outside of controlled conditions i.e. infront of their monitor in mixed office lighting
  • Colour cabinet fitted with tubes that are not designed for visual assessment i.e. BS D65 tubes instead of CIE D65
  • Colour viewing cabinets cluttered or contamiated with ambient light
  • Assessors not tested for colour vision. 

Benefits

  • Control the assessment process, minimising subjective disagreements
  • More accurately define tolerances based on production samples and visual impact
  • Optimise processes to ensure that assessors with superior vision scores and training are identified and utilised where needed

Solutions for the Colour Measurement of Placeholder

Fluorescent Tube Cabinets

Fluorescent tube based viewing cabinets provide the most accurate CIE Illuminants for Colour Assessments and are available in a wide range of configurations to suit your requirements.

LED based viewing cabinets

Increasingly products are sold in LED lit environments or are integrated with LED lighitng. For such applications it can be valueable to assess the prouduct under LED light, either coloured effect lightor LED white to see as the customer sees.

Hybrid Viewing Cabinets

Hybrid cabiets deliver the best of both worlds, combining both fluorescent tubes and LED light, allowing assessment under Standard illuminants and custom sources.

Information about Best Practice

Konica Minolta Sensing have resources available that support our customers in implementing a best practice system of visual assessment.

SOPs for Visual Assessment

Download a template SOP to assist in implementing best practice within your processes.

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