Appearance and Scattered Light

This chapter concentrates on some of the issues related to scatter that affect appearance; however, there is a lot more to appearance than just scatter. Color is a major factor in appearance, and the quantification of color is not an issue in this text. Gloss (specular reflection measured under special circumstances) is another appearance quantifier. The response of the human eye also modifies appearance. For a full treatment of these other issues, The Measurement of Appearance by Hunter and Harold (1987) is a good place to start. Nevertheless, scatter measurements are an excellent way to monitor appearance (and texture) in manufacturing situations, where circumstances do not allow the use of a well-defined relationship (such as the Rayleigh–Rice golden rule) to quantify surface statistics.