Abstract
The possibility to obtain a desired color of the product and to ensure its repeatability in the production process is highly desired in many industries such as printing, automobile, dyeing, textile, cosmetics or plastics industry. So far, most companies have traditionally used the "manual" method, relying on intuition and experience of a colorist. However, the manual preparation of multiple samples and their correction can be very time consuming and expensive. The computer technology has allowed the development of software to support the process of matching colors. Nowadays, formulation of colors is done with appropriate equipment (colorimeters, spectrophotometers, computers) and dedicated software. Computer-aided formulation is much faster and cheaper than manual formulation, because fewer corrective iterations have to be carried out, to achieve the desired result. Moreover, the colors are analyzed with regard to the metamerism, and the best recipe can be chosen, according to the specific criteria (price, quantity, availability). Optimaization problem of color formulation can be solved in many diferent ways. Authors decided to apply genetic algorithms in this domain.
History of the beginnings of the plastics industry in Portugal