DescriptionIn an effort to create more dynamic looking automobiles, there is an ever increasing trend among automobile manufacturers towards the use of metallic coatings in the finish of a vehicle. These coatings consist of transparent colorants mixed with metallic flakes. The flakes in the coating cause a change in color and brightness of the finish with viewing and illumination direction. This change in appearance accentuates the curves of a car, making it visually more attractive. Besides this angular dependence on viewing/illumination direction, the metallic finishes also exhibit a visually complex texture. Depending on the properties of the finish and the viewing and illumination conditions, the flakes exhibit a sparkle like texture, while the glossy clear coat may show a rough or smooth surface. As a result of these complex visual attributes, capturing the appearance and finding a perfect color match for a metallic finish is a non trivial task. Traditional methods of visual color evaluation and five angle color measurement can neither sufficiently capture nor characterize the angular and spatial variation in appearance of a metallic coating. Instead, we use the BTF (bidirectional texture function) to capture the variation in appearance of the coating with illumination and viewing direction. We use a novel texture camera to simultaneously capture the BRDF (bidirectional reflectance distribution function) and BTF of the coatings. We use the unique BRDF of each finish to develop a completely objective and automated match measure that shows a high correlation with the visual judgement of color matching experts. We then use the measured BTFs along with a novel texture synthesis technique to create photorealistic renderings of the coatings that reproduces all the visual effects of these complex coatings. We also present a novel material recognition method using the Texcam images.