Color Measurements of Three-dimensional Ink-jet Prints

Reproduction of colors in three-dimensional ink-jet printing (3DP), dependant on the materials used, was studied A lot of different types of rapid prototyping techniques exist; some of them are based on the standard ink-jet printing. 3D printing is classified as additive, powder-based rapid prototyping technique. The binder is ink-jetted onto the successive layers of powder. The chemical interaction of the binder and the powder results in solidification of material and thus the three dimensional prints are produced In recent years, the opportunity of color 3D prints has been made possible. In a 3D color printer, the colorants make part of the binder solution. The system uses four printheads - CMY and clear binder and reproduces color on the basis of 2D desktop ink-jet printer. Considering 3D prints have much more rough surface compared to conventional ink-jet prints, the instrument-related aspects of color measurements were discussed Spherical geometry spectrophotometer was used As 3D prints are almost always post-processed by applying a selected infiltrant as a finishing agent, the color change of finished versus non-infiltrated prints has been studied Infiltrants used as finishing agents were epoxy resin based and cyanoacrylate.