Effects of Surface Anisotropy on Perception of Car Body Attractiveness

In the automotive industry effect coatings are used to introduce customized product design, visually communicating the unique impression of a car. Industrial effect coatings systems achieve primarily a globally isotropic appearance, i.e., surface appearance that does not change when material rotates around its normal. To the contrary, anisotropic appearance exhibits variable behavior due to oriented structural elements. This paper studies to what extent anisotropic appearance improves a visual impression of a car body beyond a standard isotropic one. We ran several psychophysical studies identifying the proper alignment of an anisotropic axis over a car body, showing that regardless of the illumination conditions, subjects always preferred an anisotropy axis orthogonal to car body orientation. The majority of subjects also found the anisotropic appearance more visually appealing than the isotropic one.