#Digital Printing

2017-07-26

Allegorithmic’s Substance Designer will support AXF

X-Rite Incorporated, a global leader in color science and technology, and its subsidiary Pantone LLC, today announced that Allegorithmic’s material authoring tool, Substance Designer, will natively support the Appearance Exchange Format (AxF™) in September.

Developed by X-Rite, AxF is a vendor-neutral format that enables the communication of all aspects of a physical material’s appearance – color, texture, gloss, refraction, translucency, special effects (sparkles) and reflection properties – in a single, editable file to improve design virtualization. AxF allows Substance Designer users to create physically correct, virtual materials that reduce design time and offer the most compelling, photorealistic 3D images possible. X-Rite and Allegorithmic will showcase the AxF integration in Substance Designer at SIGGRAPH 2017, July 30 – August 3 in Los Angeles.

AxF is the foundational component of the X-Rite Total Appearance Capture (TAC™) ecosystem, a solution that brings a new level of accuracy and efficiency to the capture, communication and presentation of physical materials in the virtual world. Traditionally, the capture and rendering of complex materials such as special effects paints, meshes and synthetic fabrics have been a time-consuming and manual process. TAC addresses this challenge with a new level of precision in material scanning coupled with an ability to share the resulting data, via AxF, across an expanding set of virtual design tools like Substance Designer.

“Integration of real world materials has always been the missing link in virtual design,” says Dr. Francis Lamy, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, X-Rite and Pantone. “The TAC ecosystem and AxF give designers an entirely new way to achieve this goal. We’re excited to partner with Allegorithmic in expanding the capabilities of Substance Designer and give users the ability to create increasingly complex textures and imagery.”

“The ability to enhance scanned materials with procedural elements is the ultimate way to produce versatile, virtual representations of materials,” said Dr. Sébastien Deguy, Founder and CEO, Allegorithmic. “By making our Substance tools compatible with TAC and AxF, we are giving our users access to an incredible system for achieving physically accurate, professional-grade and customizable digital materials.”

Substance Designer is the leading PBR material authoring tool for artists and designers. With roots in the entertainment industry, Substance Designer allows users to create and customize virtual materials with photorealistic results, whether they are starting from scratch or from a high-quality scan.

TAC captures physical material appearance at SIGGRAPH

SIGGRAPH 2017 attendees can see a demonstration of X-Rite’s award-winning Total Appearance Capture (TAC) ecosystem and the AxF integration with Substance Designer at the X-Rite booth 1104. Attendees will see how AxF files can be used within the Substance Designer software and applied to rendering and animation.

The TAC ecosystem is comprised of the TAC7 scanner, PANTORA™ Material Hub desktop application, and Virtual Light Booth (VLB). Physical material samples are scanned using the TAC7 scanner, which captures appearance properties digitally to create AxF files that store appearance data. The files are stored, managed, viewed and edited in the PANTORA desktop application.

The AxF files can be shared with Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Computer-Aided Design (CAD), and state-of-the art rendering applications including Allegorithmic’s Substance Designer, Autodesk VRED™ Professional 2017, Lumiscaphe Patchwork 3D, Luxion KeyShot® and NVIDIA Iray®.

The Virtual Light Booth is the industry’s first immersive 3D visualization environment for evaluating material appearance. It allows users to accurately and efficiently visualize and compare 3D digital material renderings side-by-side with physical samples. The VLB combines X-Rite’s SpectraLight QC professional light booth technology with a high-brightness, color-calibrated LCD display, color management technology, and motion tracking sensors. This allows the VLB viewing environment to control all parameters that influence the perception of appearance from illumination to contextual to observational factors. With the VLB, design teams can easily vary these conditions to see changes in material performance. This helps ensure consistency between digital prototypes and final physical products and empowers designers to make more informed material selection decisions reducing approval cycles and accelerating time to market.

Mimaki celebrates Triple EDP Award win at FESPA 2026

Mimaki Europe, a leading manufacturer of industrial inkjet printers and cutting plotters, was presented with 3 EDP Awards at the association’s 2026 ceremony, held at FESPA Global Print Expo. These highly acclaimed awards celebrate best-in-class innovation across the print industry, and Mimaki was honoured in three different categories.

EFI brings high-performance display graphics, packaging, and textile printing innovations to FESPA 2026

Electronics For Imaging, Inc. (EFI™) is bringing a broad range of new hybrid, roll-to-roll, and textile inkjet innovations to FESPA Global Print Expo 2026, taking place 19-22 May at Fira Barcelona Gran Via. Visitors to the EFI stand (Hall 3, #C85) will see the new EFI VUTEk M3h X hybrid LED printer, new EFI VUTEk® FabriVU® 340 i8 eight-colour dye sublimation printer, the EFI VUTEk X5r roll-to-roll LED printer, and the EFI VUTEk Q3h XP seven-colour hybrid printer in action, each designed to help sign and display producers scale output, diversify applications, and drive more profitable growth.

Mimaki ‘Powers Possibilities’ with a market-diverse application and printer line-up at FESPA 2026

Mimaki Europe, a leading manufacturer of industrial inkjet printers and cutting plotters, is bringing its “Print Different - Powering Possibilities” theme to life at FESPA Global Print Expo 2026 (Fira de Barcelona, 19-22 May 2026), demonstrating how digital printing technology can turn ideas into high-value applications and new business opportunities.

Kornit Digital announces commercial availability of Atlas MATRIX following successful global Beta program

Kornit Digital (NASDAQ: KRNT, "Kornit Digital", "Kornit", or the "Company"), a global leader in sustainable, on-demand digital fashion and textile production technologies, today announced the commercial availability of the Atlas MATRIX platform following the successful completion of a global beta program across leading production environments in Europe and North America. The announcement, made ahead of FESPA 2026 in Barcelona, marks a major milestone in the evolution of digital apparel production.

Mario Jorge Machado re-elected President of EURATEX

The EURATEX General Assembly has re-elected Mario Jorge Machado as President of EURATEX, renewing its confidence in his leadership at a crucial moment for the European textile and clothing industry. The sector is facing rising costs, global competitive pressure and an increasingly challenging transition towards sustainability and digitalisation.

ITM 2026 makes happy participants with its international and qualified visitor profile

ITM 2026 International Textile Machinery Exhibition, one of the most prestigious meeting points of the textile machinery sector, attracted attention in its first three days, particularly with its diverse international visitor numbers. Industry professionals from all over the world had the opportunity to closely examine the latest technology machines and solutions displayed in operation. Thousands of visitors from approximately 100 countries, primarily Egypt, Pakistan, India, Uzbekistan, Syria, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, met at the Tüyap Fair and Congress Center for new investment and cooperation opportunities.

KARL MAYER presents a textile TEXTRONIC® innovation at ITM 2026

With highly efficient machines and continuous textile innovations, KARL MAYER underscores its role as a reliable partner for discerning top-tier customers. Just in time for ITM 2026 in Istanbul, the industry leader is introducing a true innovation: an eyelash lace with its characteristic fringed look – combined with a previously unattainable 4-way stretch. While the established fabric could until now only be produced as rigid version or with one-dimensional stretch, the new elasticity in both dimensions expands the possibilities for cross-band panel fabrics.