@jctay you are right, and thank you for pointing it out. Once a chart is printed, its layout is fixed on the paper, so measuring it on a 5 × 5 or 12 × 2 grid in i1Profiler could not work the way I had described it. Sorry for the detour, and thanks for thinking it through so carefully.
ChromIQ 4.3.31 is out today, and two things in it came straight from your posts: your re-saved i1Profiler files now import, and your idea of comparing readings is built in.
Download:
https://github.com/itsab1989/ChromIQ/releases/tag/v4.3.31
1. Re-saved i1Profiler files are now checked by their colours
When a turned i1Profiler measurement was saved on a different grid from the one the how-to note asks for, ChromIQ no longer refuses it for that alone. It compares the colours the instrument measured with the colours your chart should have on every patch:
- If they clearly match, the measurement is imported, and a message tells you that the grid in i1Profiler had changed and that the colours were checked.
- If they clearly do not match, or ChromIQ cannot tell (for example on a small chart, a chart whose patches are sorted by colour, or one made of very similar colours), the file is refused as before. The message says which of the two it was, and how to fix it without measuring again.
Your own files now pass: the ColorChecker 24 saved on the other grids, and the 624-patch chart saved on 18 and 52 pages, import with exactly the same values as the file saved on the right grid. There is no setting to switch on and no "accept anyway" button.
To be honest about the limit: this checks that the readings belong to the patches as a whole. A local slip inside one strip can still get through, exactly as it can on the correct grid.
2. Your repeatability idea: "Other readings"
Open
Tools > Inspect a measurement (the Measurement info window). Under
Other readings you can now add one or several other readings of the same chart, up to nine: ChromIQ .ti3 files, CGATS text files, or i1Profiler files (.mxf, .cxf and the CGATS text exports, also with decimal commas). ChromIQ first checks that the files really hold the same chart, and refuses a file of another chart instead of comparing the wrong patches. Then it shows:
- the average, median, 95th percentile and largest ΔE00 between the readings;
- a tolerance you choose (0.5, 1.0, 2.0 or your own value), with the number of patches above it;
- the patches with the largest differences, and a summary for every strip, so a strip that slipped stands out;
- with three or more readings: a repeatability figure, the reading that stands apart when one clearly does (all the others agree within your tolerance), or that the readings fall into groups.
The same reading added twice is refused, so one file cannot outvote the others. And just as you said about taking a third reading: a reading that stands apart is strong evidence, but not proof, because two readings can share an error. The window says so too. It never changes a file or a profile.
Knut's pointer to the Measurement Report rows is still the right tool for watching a printer over time. This new one is for comparing readings of one chart directly.
This example uses the ET-18100 files that pharmacist shared earlier in this thread (
post #143), read once in ChromIQ (target_v2.ti3) and once in i1Profiler (target.mxf, M0): 698 patches compared, average 0.32, largest 0.98, none above 1.0.
View attachment 19875
And an example with four readings of one of our own charts, where we slipped strip H in reading 3 on purpose. ChromIQ names reading 3, and strip H in it, as the one to read again:
View attachment 19876
The strip summary, and what the window tells you about it:
View attachment 19877
When the readings split two against two (here two of them were changed to look like a second instrument), it does not pick a winner but says that they fall into groups:
View attachment 19878
3. A note on pharmacist's ET-18100 files
@pharmacist, thank you for sharing these files. They were a great help for testing. As you explained when you shared them, the older target.ti3 is your i1Profiler measurement target.mxf, imported into ChromIQ 4.3.19 and converted, so both hold the same data, while the two v2 files are independent measurements. jctay then worked out that the conversion used M2 (
post #144). Our check agrees: target.ti3 differs from the M2 reading in target.mxf by about 0.06 ΔE00 on average, and from the M0 reading by about 1.0. What we would add is that the .ti3 itself does not say under which condition it was made. The other ET-18100 files (target_v2.ti3 and the M0 readings in both .mxf files) agree with each other within about 0.3 on average, and target.ti3 is about 1.0 away from each of them. So next to them it is the one that stands apart, purely because of the measurement condition, and not because anything went wrong.
That is why the window now has a
Measurement condition row, which tells you when a file does not name its condition (you can see it in the first picture, because target_v2.ti3 does not name one either), and why readings are best compared under the same condition.
Also in 4.3.31
i1Profiler CGATS text exports written with decimal commas (on a computer set to German, for example) are now imported as well, by the same rule as the .mxf files in 4.3.29. Plus a few fixes, see the release notes.
It would be great if you could try both with your files and tell me what you see.
Thanks again!
Edit: an earlier version of this post called the ET-18100 files jctay's. They are pharmacist's (post linked above). Sorry to both of you for the mix-up.
