Method of fabricating translucent materials with desired appearance

Translucent material fabrication for appearance.

A method for creating a replication material corresponding to the appearance of a translucent or partially translucent target material. The appearance of the target material can be measured or may be prescribed by a user. The method includes receiving by a processor optical data related to a target subsurface scattering parameter of the target material. Once the processor has received the optical or light characteristic data, the method includes determining by the processor a replication pigment concentration to replicate the appearance of the target material caused by the target subsurface scattering parameter. The processor determines this concentration based on a plurality of pigment subsurface scattering parameters corresponding to a plurality of stored pigment concentrations in the computing device. Once the replication pigment concentration has been determined, the method includes creating, physically or virtually, the replication material by combining the pigment concentration with a base material.

FIELD(1) The present invention relates generally to creating a material to match the appearance of a target material, and more specifically to creating a replication material to replicate the appearance of a target material having translucent properties.BACKGROUND(2) The accurate representation of certain materials in both manufactured form, as well as in computer generated images, is challenging. For a high quality replication that looks “real,” the appearance characteristics of the material should be accurately measured, quantified, and translated into physical characteristics (for a manufactured form) or software representations (for a computer generated image). Human skin is one such material, of many, for which an accurate replication is desired.(3) Processes exist for designing and fabricating real-life materials in an attempt to replicate life-like surfaces and make them appear real. For example, processes exist for developing a human-skin-like material to cover human models or animatronic items, such as robots, for use in live settings (such as amusement parks and museums). However, many existing fabrication processes and methods may ignore certain parameters of the replication material and/or target material in order to simplify the replication process. Thus, replicated materials made using these simplified processes may not appear as life-like, or sufficiently similar to, the targeted material for replication. In other instances, skilled artists may need to manually