Modified Spectral Neugebauer Model for Printer Characterization

Spectral Neugebauer model is widely used for spectral reflectance prediction during printer characterization. However, several factors reduce the predication precision. Thus, an improved cellular Yule-Nielson spectral Neugebauer (CYNSN) model is proposed, which modifies the traditional spectral Neugebauer model in three main aspects: (1) First, in order to adjust the nonlinearities between the predicated and measured spectral reflectance, an iteratively calculated Yule-Nielson exponent is added to the reflectance values within the Neugebauer equations. (2) Second, the quantity of Neugebauer primaries is increased by dividing the CMY colorant space into 4³ uniform cellular subdomains. (3) Third, the mapping functions are developed to map the area coverages' theoretical values to their effective values within the subdomains, and the mapped values highly improve the matching degree of the predicated and measured reflectance values. In the experiment, four related spectral Neugebauer models are employed during printer characterization, which are the traditional spectral Neugebauer model, Yule-Nielson spectral Neugebauer (YNSN) model, traditional CYNSN model, and the modified CYNSN model, respectively. And the experimental results show the modified CYNSN model yields a significant improvement over the other spectral Neugebauer models, by comparing the characterization errors in the form of colorimetry and spectroscopy.