Fig. 1. Design control and perceptual reproduction of material translucency for full color 3D printing: (a) a printed anatomy model with opaque and translucent parts, revealing internal structures; (b) a polished transparent Lion with a red mane and 3D logo inside; (c) a transparent lizard with colored scales illuminated from below by a checkerboard pattern; (d) a close-up (see Figure 12 for the full view) of wax and a 3D print reproducing the wax's translucent appearance.We present an efficient and scalable pipeline for fabricating full-colored objects with spatially-varying translucency from practical and accessible input data via multi-material 3D printing. Observing that the costs associated with BSSRDF measurement and processing are high, the range of 3D printable BSSRDFs are severely limited, and that the human visual system relies only on simple high-level cues to perceive translucency, we propose a method based on reproducing perceptual translucency cues. The input to our pipeline is an RGBA signal defined on the surface of an object, making our approach accessible and practical for designers. We propose a framework for extending standard color management and profiling to combined color and translucency management using a gamut correspondence strategy we call opaque relative processing. We present an efficient streaming method to compute voxel-level material arrangements, achieving both realistic reproduction of measured translucent materials and artistic effects involving multiple fully or partially transparent geometries.

Accurate color reproduction is important in many applications of 3D printing, from design prototypes to 3D color copies or portraits. Although full color is available via other technologies, multi-jet printers have greater potential for graphical 3D printing, in terms of reproducing complex appearance properties. However, to date these printers cannot produce full color, and doing so poses substantial technical challenges, from the shear amount of data to the translucency of the available color materials. In this paper, we propose an error diffusion halftoning approach to achieve full color with multi-jet printers, which operates on multiple isosurfaces or layers within the object. We propose a novel traversal algorithm for voxel surfaces, which allows the transfer of existing error diffusion algorithms from 2D printing. The resulting prints faithfully reproduce colors, color gradients and finescale details.

Many 3D printing applications require the reproduction of an object's color in addition to its shape. One 3D printing technology, called multi-jetting (or poly-jetting), allows full color 3D reproductions by arranging multiple colored materials (UV curing photo-polymers) on a droplet level in a single object. One property of such printing materials is their high translucency posing new challenges for characterizing such 3D printers to create ICC pro files. In this paper, we will first describe the whole color-managed 3D printing work flow and will then focus on measuring the colors of highly translucent printing materials. We will show that measurements made by spectrophotometers used in the graphic arts industry are systematically biased towards lower reflection. We will then propose a trichromatic camera-based approach for measuring such colors. Error rates obtained in comparison with spectroradiometric measurements for the same viewing conditions are within the interinstrument-variability of hand-held spectrophotometers used in graphic arts