Discussion on Digital Printing Reproduction Methods for Intangible Cultural Heritage Lacquer Art

Abstract

The Lacquer art which has unique optical properties, multi-layered textures and rich colors is one of the most important type of traditional crafts. Because of the irreproducibility and long production cycle of hand-made lacquer application, it is hard to be disseminated or applied. We explore the technical routes by transforming the features of lacquer art into digital printing reproduction: Firstly, The optical properties (glossiness, transmission absorption characteristics), 3D data acquisition of surface texture of the lacquer surfaces are quantified; Establishing a mapping relationship from the lacquer color spectrum to CIELAB and spectral spaces. On the basis of above result, a spectral reflectance based method for color characterization modeling of lacquer was proposed that includes multi-channel separation techniques to solve the problem of metallic finishes and transparent layers simultaneously and prepress compensation algorithm for glossiness and surface undulations. For the printing process parameters, we explored different types of substrate surface treatments and primer layer simulation schemes, coordinated overprinting sequence and ink layer thickness, analyzing the enhancement mechanism of post-curing treatment on the lacquer film effect. All these digital methods can successfully reproduce the visual and tactile characteristics of lacquer, providing a quantitative technical route for the printing reproduction of traditional lacquer art.