Visual perception of 3D printed translucent objects

In order to reproduce translucent objects by 3D printers employing fully transparent (or clear) material, modeling the human visual perception of translucency is crucial. In this preliminary study, a set of 256 texture-less samples was created by mixing white and clear materials using multi-jet 3D printing. The samples differ in both lateral light transport properties and transmittance. Two psychophysical experiments were conducted to reveal the relationship between transmittance and a perceptually uniform scale for translucency. The results show that Stevens' power law describes well this relationship within the optically thin range of samples. Furthermore, the sensitivity to lateral light transport is small compared to transmittance for the texture-less sample set.