A Handheld Image-based Gloss Meter for Complete Gloss Characterization

Nowadays, industrial gloss evaluation is mostly limited to the specular gloss meter, focusing on a single attribute of surface gloss. The correlation of such meters with the human gloss appraisal is thus rather weak. Although more advanced image-based gloss meters have become available, their application is typically restricted to niche industries due to the high cost and complexity. This paper extends a previous design of a comprehensive and affordable image-based gloss meter (iGM) for the determination of each of the five main attributes of surface gloss (specular gloss, DOI, haze, contrast and surface-uniformity gloss). Together with an extensive introduction on surface gloss and its evaluation, the iGM design is described and some of its capabilities and opportunities are illustrated.