Evaluation of Material Appearance Under Different Spotlight Distributions Compared to Natural Illumination

Solid-state lamps including Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) lighting could facilitate a wide variety of lighting conditions by controlling the spectral power distribution and the spatial distribution of the light source. The appearance of the surface of an object is significantly influenced by the lighting conditions and the constituent materials of the objects. Therefore, appearance of objects may appear to be different from expectation. Lighting condition leads to important part of accurate material recognition. We investigate whether it is possible to determine the lighting condition that results in the intended material appearance by the evaluation of this parameter under different lighting distributions compared to natural illumination. The viewing conditions of three spotlight sizes and three illuminance levels were investigated. The participants selected the viewing condition for which the appearance of fruits and vegetable food samples was the closest to the impressions learned from observing and freely holding these objects under natural reference illumination. Participants also evaluated their impressions of stimuli in each viewing condition by responding to twelve questions. The results show that the wide spotlight size condition with higher diffuseness of the illumination was selected more frequently than the narrow spotlight conditions. This suggests that the diffuseness of illumination influences the appearance of the object’s material. The results of seven-point scales suggest that their impression of stimuli was influenced by the surface properties of the objects as well as the lighting distributions. It was suggested that it is possible to set an appropriate lighting condition to facilitate material appearance similar to the expected appearance under natural illumination.

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