AutoPartsAsia | FEBRUARY 2018 | 49Material Hub, presented in VLB and
can be accessed by popular CAD
systems such as Autodesk VRED and
NvidiaIray. X-Rite continues to add
integrations with additional product
lifecycle management solutions on an
ongoing basis.”
With these capabilities, the TAC
ecosystem can replace the existing
virtual material systems and definitions
that are not powerful enough to
characterize fully and render today’s
complex materials. From automotive
paints to hand-made fabrics, from
vinyl flooring to shingles, the TAC
ecosystem accurately captures and
presents even the most complicated
and sophisticated materials.
The same scientific approach can be
applied to visual material properties
–no more time spent estimating,
guessing and adjusting colour and
appearance - to make the products
and designs look right. With the X-Rite
TAC ecosystem, one can acquire exact
measurements of visual properties
and use them for physically precise
visualization.
The TAC7 scanner efficiently measures
and stores colour, size, texture, gloss,
transparency, and other appearance
characteristics for even the most
complex materials.
Scanned results are captured and
shared via AxF, a vendor neutral file
format that is easily accessed by all
major Product Lifecycle Management
(PLM), Computer-Aided Design
(CAD), and state-of-the art rendering
applications. The result is highly
accurate files and reduced time for
manual adjustments.
The PANTORA Material Hub is a
desktop application that lets store, edit
and share digital files across all the
PLM and CAD systems applications.
The result is consistent material
renderings from design to production
and point of sale.
TAC Role In Designing
TAC helps customers in the automotive
industry in the three distinct areas of
creation, production and marketing to
contain design time and cost, Dlugos
said.
Creation: Cost savings by minimising
the need for physical samples;
Simplified maintenance of material
libraries; Simplified logistics for digital
samples; Instant availability with
digital deployment; Flexibility to cost-
effectively explore different materials;
Creation of customised materials; and
reuse of existing materials to design
derivatives and variants.
Production: Cost reduction and
accelerated design with fewer physical
prototypes; improved communication
with more accurate renderings; design
comparison and consistency with
measured appearance data; simplified
logistics and faster time to market; and
systematic appearance-based quality
control.
Marketing: More accurately rendered
marketing materials; Easy reuse of
digital design materials for improved
productivity and cost savings; improved
customer communication with accuraterenderings; and E-commerce and
showroom improvement by true
realism. On the difference between the
conventional method and TAC, Dlugos
said the conventional method was to
use 1D flat images/photo and create
material effects in a simulated manner,
this process is very costly and less
realistic than the advancement offered
in TAC.
“In the automotive market, Audi and
Volkswagen have publicly announced
their support for the ongoing work
with TAC. Many other customers have
confidential or trade secret agreements
with us,” he said. X-Rite is also present
in OEMs like Tata Motors, Mahindra,
Ford, Renault Nissan, and Honda, all
in India.“X-Rite has enjoyed and has worked
to build a very strong brand with many
of the top-tier automotive brands on
a local engagement basis. We have
taken great care in building up a global
sales service and support network to
serve these customers with emphasis
on local relations that will carry forward
products standardised and pushed
out to their local factories and design
centres,” Dlugos said.Thomas Dlugos