[Tool] ChromIQ – a macOS and Windows GUI for ArgyllCMS printer profiling (v4.2.0)

[Im-back-Arno]

Thanks for your thoughts @Im-back-Arno
I think it is always a matter of making the best without going to the most extremes. Generally, the more patches the better, but what you get in improvement is less and less the higher it goes. Some swear to closer to 3000 patches, maybe because they can and have an i1iSis for A3 pages. We were contacted by a lady from Red River, where we added their patch set into the presets in ChromIQ. Their standard patch set to profile all their papers is 2052 patches, so that might be an indicator in the industry.

Take also a look at this post, where I compare @pharmacist's 1944 patch preset with my own that is in the list of presets: post-149535

To your comment on a one-pager for control: We have designed a workflow in ChromIQ that allows regular control measurements of a profile (we call it a verification run), which then outputs a report, from the tool "Measurement Report" in the tools menu.

Attached is an example report made on demo data, as I do not currently have any real data measured over time to get all the trend-graphs.
And here is a screenshot of the Measurement Report window for the attached report:
View attachment 19312

Sebastian and I hope the community can test this feature and report back the results... There are many options to customise limits for each metric checked, and there are 20 different metrics to choose from. Here is a view of the setup window that defines all the metrics and thresholds (all 20 does not fit into one screenshot, as the window scrolls):
View attachment 19313

The Help Card "Getting Started" in the Welcome to ChromIQ window (question mark icon on top-right corner of the app) gives an overview of the workflow in a diagram. I recommend having a look at that. Here is a snapshot of that diagram:
View attachment 19314

Cheers,
Knut

Hi Knut,

Thanks for the additional info. Around 2,000 patches it is!

Indeed, I did read about the options to do control runs versus time and will try to include that in my workflow once I get the hang of it all and settle on a standard calibration. Will report back on progress and findings on the control workflow when it’s running.

Thanks!

Arno

 

[know]

Hi Knut,

Thanks for the additional info. Around 2,000 patches it is!

Indeed, I did read about the options to do control runs versus time and will try to include that in my workflow once I get the hang of it all and settle on a standard calibration. Will report back on progress and findings on the control workflow when it’s running.

Thanks!

Arno

Sounds great! Thanks...

Just as a curiosity, to give some more backbone to the near-neutral patches topic.
Red River gave us the ti1 patch sets that they user for profiling, as mentioned before, and are thus public and available in ChromIQ. Looking at the 3D plots for, shown below, you can see they use a lot of patches near-neutral ramp, adapted to follow their paper's profile, but much less patches in a circular pattern around the centre neutral-grey axis, and also stopping at the lower black end. The 3D cube plots for the 1944 patch set presets posted earlier use much more patches around the neutral axis (in two circles) and follows all the way down to black. I think ChromIQ's method is more thorough, but only tests could reveal the truth about that. The red river patch set was also manually made by the company, while ChromIQ delivers something the market has not had at all for free use, a patch generator that can create these awesome patch sets that previously only super-high-end high costing software previously could deliver anything close to, if I am correct...

Cheers,
Knut

 

[pharmacist]

I am taking a break with my i1Pro1/2/3 targets (those are ready for A4 and I will proceed with Letter later on).

For the moment I am experimenting with the Colormunki/i1Studio spectro. Since this device reads with 50 Hz it is (compared to the 100 Hz i1Pro1 and the 200 Hz i1Pro2) I am playing with a particular elongated patch set that has a length of 15 mm (twice the length of the 7.5 mm patch width of the i1Pro1/2/3 targets). This way you can scan with a reasonable speed over a row similar to the i1Pro1/2/3 while taking the same amount of measurements per patch colour:

Since the patches are very narrow, you will need a 3D printed scanning jig to scan with it:

@knut: do you think this is a good idea for supplying some extra targets using this concept ? One A4 can house 300 patches with this concept, so I can do a 300, 600 and 900 patch target to be integrated in ChromIQ ? I am using a modified TC2.83 target (added extra grey steps up to 300, which I have named TC3.00) for this target.

 

[know]

I am taking a break with my i1Pro1/2/3 targets (those are ready for A4 and I will proceed with Letter later on).

For the moment I am experimenting with the Colormunki/i1Studio spectro. Since this device reads with 50 Hz it is (compared to the 100 Hz i1Pro1 and the 200 Hz i1Pro2) I am playing with a particular elongated patch set that has a length of 15 mm (twice the length of the 7.5 mm patch width of the i1Pro1/2/3 targets). This way you can scan with a reasonable speed over a row similar to the i1Pro1/2/3 while taking the same amount of measurements per patch colour:

View attachment 19316

Since the patches are very narrow, you will need a 3D printed scanning jig to scan with it:

View attachment 19317

@knut: do you think this is a good idea for supplying some extra targets using this concept ? One A4 can house 300 patches with this concept, so I can do a 300, 600 and 900 patch target to be integrated in ChromIQ ? I am using a modified TC2.83 target (added extra grey steps up to 300, which I have named TC3.00) for this target.

Hi again,
I have already supplied many presets using this principle. You can see them in the preset list with names ending with "Fast reading speed" and "Slow reading speed". Currently, there are 6 presets for Slow Reading Speed and 8 for Fast Reading speed for the whole range of below 100 patches (for verification only) and up to 2142 patches.
You should really try those out first, before making your own... All the Colormunki/i1Studio presets have especially been made for someone wanting to use a ruler and the quirks that this instrument has. The reading speed is taken into account.

Here is an example for preset "A4-612p-3pages-Portrait-w10.0mm-Fast Reading Speed"

Also, you don't have to have your 3D printed scanning jig. A normal ruler works just fine, and the presets I made have helper markers at the page edges to you can align a ruler easily.

Cheers,
Knut

 

[pharmacist]

OK many thanks for the upgrade, so it is not needed. I am working on the Letter targets now. Is a combination of only the ti1 and the corresponding json file enough for a preset or do you need the tif-files and the ti2/ti3 files included in the preset package ?

Anyhow: I will supply you the 2 extra Colormunki/i1Studio presets to be included. Take care with a ruler for those narrow sized patch targets: the Colormunki/i1Studio surface underneath can scratch the patches of the adjacent patches when scanning a specific row. I have experienced this in the past with some delicate papers (with pigment ink) and while scanning specific row, some patches of the adjacent row were scratches and damaged, making the target worthless, hence I now always use a scanning jig.

 

[know]

OK many thanks for the upgrade, so it is not needed. I am working on the Letter targets now. Is a combination of only the ti1 and the corresponding json file enough for a preset or do you need the tif-files and the ti2/ti3 files included in the preset package ?

Anyhow: I will supply you the 2 extra Colormunki/i1Studio presets to be included. Take care with a ruler for those narrow sized patch targets: the Colormunki/i1Studio surface underneath can scratch the patches of the adjacent patches when scanning a specific row. I have experienced this in the past with some delicate papers (with pigment ink) and while scanning specific row, some patches of the adjacent row were scratches and damaged, making the target worthless, hence I now always use a scanning jig.

The tif files are created when loading the preset, given the setup information in the files. This prevents the app becoming very large in size. ti1 file and json file is all that is needed.

What is special about those two new Colormunki/i1Studio presets? have you checked if the current once fulfil what you wanted? If it is just the patch set modified, I prefer modifying the already existing sets to fit your recommendation, like on the new-neutral patches and the ring distance from neutral...

 

[pharmacist]

There is already a TC3.00 Colormunki target included in the set and I believe it does not conforms the ChromIQ standard. This one should: you can replace the older version with this. The larger 600p is new target (the older 702p version can be discarded).

OK, I am going to send you the files to you

A4/i1Pro combinations: 648 patch target on 1 page (standard quality), 1296 patch target on 2 pages (medium quality) and a 1944 patch target on 3 pages (expert quality).

Letter/i1Pro combinations: 648 patch target on 1 page (standard quality), 1296 patch target on 2 pages (medium quality) and a 1944 patch target on 3 pages (expert quality).

These targets follow an logical RGB sampling policy to maximize sampling of the very important near neutral/grey axis with a RGB-grid of 7x7x7 for the 648 patch target, 9x9x9 for the 1296 patch target and 10x10x10 for the 1944 patch target with a single near neutral ring for the 648 and 1296 patch targets and a double near neutral ring for the 1944 patch target.

Currently doing some modifcations on the Colormunki/i1Studio targets to adhere to the ChromIQ standards.

 

[pharmacist]

@itsab1989 : I am a bit surprised that on the german website www.druckerchannel.de there is no response on your post at the forum section

Tinte, Papier & Profile​

nobody seems to be interested or have replied on your post.

 

[itsab1989]

It has been a while since I have updated the post there but yes, feedback overall is still pretty rare and comes mostly from here and the other forum.
Last time I checked the downloads I think a little over 40 people were using the latest stable release. So either it takes some more time until people discover it or it is more niché than we think.