Whiteness Indices and UV Standards
The evaluation of whiteness of a product is dependent from the materials and the application it is used in. Natural materials for example tend to yield some yellowish tint e.g. cotton or wool, so the industry modifies the materials to compensate for this effect (yellowish tint of a product is most often seen as a quality flaw, e.g. yellowed due to aging or dirt) and make the appearance of a product more white.

INAX Corporation
INAX Corporation was founded in 1924 and is now Japan's leading manufacturer of tiling, building materials, sanitary fixtures, and residential fixtures. Particularly for tiles, INAX is the world's largest maker, and distributes these products which play a variety of roles in our daily lives to customers throughout the world.
INAX has been using Konica Minolta Sensing's spectrophotometers for many years, and the replacement of previous products with the latest Spectrophotometer CM-700d provided the opportunity for this application note.

Pepperidge Farms
When Pepperidge Farm installed Konica Minolta Sensing's BC-10 Baking Contrast Meters, judging the color of baked goods became a cinch. According to Mike Davis, bakery technologist at Pepperidge Farm, evaluating color by eye isn't as easy as many home bakers might think, in fact, he said it was a big challenge.

The Color of Peanut Butter
Did you know that Americans consume more peanut butter than any other country?
Over 90 million jars are sold annually - that's one about every three seconds! About 75 percent of all American families purchase peanut butter, enough to make 10 billion peanut butter and jelly sandwiches a year. That's about 500 million pounds of peanut butter, or three pounds per person every year and consumption is increasing.

ColorMatrix: Packaging Aesthetics
The company takes a holistic, total package approach to help its customers maximise their production efficiencies and improve both the performance and aesthetics of their products. The company was founded in 1972 in Cleveland, Ohio and today employs over 500 personnel globally. ColorMatrix has research, manufacturing and technical support facilities in Europe, North America, Latin America, and Asia.

RA Johnson Success Story
RA Johnson was in need of a reverse engineering process that was fast and reliable. As a company that manufactures industrial turbine fans and blades, the parts that they work with are complex and twisted in shape. It is important that the method RA Johnson uses for reverse engineering is highly accurate. RA Johnson needed a method of measuring and creating molds for the manufacturing of new parts that was fast precise, and reliable. To get the job done, RA Johnson came to the Konica Minolta Sensing 3D Scanning Lab to have their parts measured and converted into CAD files.

2008 Academy Award Winner Kärcher has been using spectrophotometers supplied by Konica Minolta Sensing for checking its incoming and outgoing goods since 2005. The CM-2600d flexible and ergonomically designed portable spectrophotometer was the easiest to integrate in to the company's own quality management system. It is essentially the industrial standard. It guarantees the quality of all of the related manufacturing stages during the production of the company's wide range of products, thus maintaining the corporate identity of Kärcher and its suppliers.

Panasonic: 3D Modeling
In the home appliance field, the Home Appliances Manufacturing Business Unit of Matsushita Electric Works, Ltd. continues to offer products for a new lifestyle in the areas of beauty, health, comfort and fun under the National brand in Japan and the Panasonic brand overseas. Uses Konica Minolta VIVID 910 Non-Contact 3D Digitizer is used to generate accurate 3D data of the hand-carved design model.

Die Making: A Process Digitized
The President of Hasegawa Kakouzyo Ltd, present the introduction and effects of the new production system that combines the skills and expertise accumulated since the foundation of the company with the new 3D tool VIVID 9i.

Suzuki: Visualizing Spring-back
Founded in 1964, Suzuki Industry has specialized in press die design and production for over 40 years. In recent years, the company has been improving efficiency and meeting the needs of its automotive industry clients by making an all-out effort to improve its equipment and machinery. The latest digital tools such as Non-Contact 3-D Digitizers help improve the overall diemaking process.

Applications in Restoration, Conservation, and Cultural Heritage
Actively engaged in 3D imaging technology internationally since 1997, Konica Minolta works in close partnership with leading universities, research institutes and software partners. This global activity puts the company in an ideal position to offer successful product solutions for a wide range of 3D applications. Due to its expertise in color and light-measurement technology, the design and manufacture of 3D imaging systems is a logical next step in the development of Konica Minolta's core strengths.

EBARA: Detecting Prototyping Defects
EBARA Densan Ltd. was founded as a fully-owned subsidiary of EBARA Corporation, an environment-conscious company focusing on the realization of "sustainable society," and has established track records for wind and water-power machinery systems, water-treatment systems, environmental protection systems, and semiconductor manufacturing equipment in the areas of information, communications, and control.

EBARA: Detecting Prototyping Defects
EBARA Densan Ltd. was founded as a fully-owned subsidiary of EBARA Corporation, an environment-conscious company focusing on the realization of "sustainable society," and has established track records for wind and water-power machinery systems, water-treatment systems, environmental protection systems, and semiconductor manufacturing equipment in the areas of information, communications, and control.

Sumar Success Story
3D Scanning Labs has completed a number of successful projects for the design and art community. The scanning services provided by 3D Scanning Labs allowed sculptor, Carl Hungness to build a quarter scale replica of the Sumar Streamliner racecar, matching the level of accuracy and precision of the original vehicle.

Shade & Shape: Making Sense of Color, Light, and Form
Dr. Soneira, founder and president of DisplayMate Technologies, observes the display industry with an uncompromising eye toward accuracy. His company produces proprietary test patterns that are used by manufacturers, test labs and hundreds of publications worldwide for testing and evaluating display hardware - to the extent that DisplayMate has become a widely accepted industry standard.

Fuji Polymer: Transfer of Light Through Silicone
After developing new thermally-conductive and electrically-conductive products one after another, Fujipoly launched a new challenge: the developmentof silicone rubber that conducts light. While taking advantage of the properties of transparent silicone rubber, Fujipoly made round-the-clock efforts to achieve further higher transmissivity and a uniform light-emitting face. Finally, Fujipoly succeeded in creating light guide film (LGF) using silicone rubber. By applying special treatment to 0.2-mm thick silicone rubber film, Fujipoly realized a surface light source with high transmissivity and uniform light emission.

CNET.com: How We Test HDTV's
Today's TV choices cover a broad spectrum of screen sizes, aspect ratios, features, technologies, and prices. But what ultimately distinguishes one TV from another is how good the image looks. While such an assessment of image quality would appear hopelessly subjective, CNET Labs has come up with a set of tools and procedures designed to arrive at unbiased results by utilizing industry-accepted video-quality evaluation tools, objective testing criteria, and trained experts.