X-Rite Partners with Dassault Systèmes for Appearance Exchange Format 

X-Rite and Pantone have established a partnership with Dassault Systèmes to support the Appearance Exchange Format (AxF). Developed by X-Rite, AxF is a vendor-neutral format that enables the communication of all aspects of a physical material’s appearance in a single file to improve design and supply chain virtualization, the companies report. AxF will be supported for digital measured material representations by Dassault Systèmes solutions, making it easier to share measured material information across teams to drive product innovation and improve customer experiences.

Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform is a business experience platform that integrates the company’s 3D digital design, analysis, simulation and intelligence applications in a collaborative interactive environment to transform the way products are designed, produced and supported. The new partnership will provide Dassault Systèmes’ customers with a standard way to communicate color and appearance material.  

AxF is the foundational component of the X-Rite Total Appearance Capture (TAC) ecosystem, a solution that is designed to bring accuracy and efficiency to the capture, communication and visualization of physical materials, the company reports. The TAC ecosystem is made to offer precision in material scanning coupled with an ability to share the resulting data, via AxF, across an expanding set of visualization and PLM tools. 

“With AxF, Dassault Systèmes’ customers will be able to create physically correct, virtual material libraries that can be accessed across the entire product workflow, from design, through production and quality control,” says Dr. Francis Lamy, executive vice president and chief technology officer, X-Rite and Pantone. “For the first time, leading automotive, aerospace, architecture, apparel and consumer goods companies will be able to share material libraries that include color and appearance data between departments, suppliers and partners to accelerate business innovation.”

The TAC ecosystem enables product designers, 3D artists, material specifiers and marketers to create digital materials representations that simulate physical appearance characteristics such as color, texture, gloss, refraction, transparency, special effects (sparkles) and reflection properties, the companies report. 

The TAC ecosystem is comprised of the TAC7 scanner, PANTORA Material Hub desktop application, and Virtual Light Booth (VLB). Physical material samples are scanned using the TAC7 scanner, which captures appearance properties digitally to create AxF files that store appearance data. The files are stored, managed, viewed and edited in the PANTORA desktop application. 

The Virtual Light Booth is an immersive 3D visualization environment for evaluating material appearance. It allows users to visualize and compare 3D digital material renderings side-by-side with physical samples. 

More Info

X-Rite

Pantone

Dassault Systèmes

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.

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