“Spyder” spins a web of colour

The "Spyder" has been acclaimed as a breakthrough in digital imaging. ColorVision

Switzerland's Eichhof group, which includes the country's largest independent brewer, has high hopes for a product that has absolutely nothing to do with beer.

Called a “Spyder”, it also has nothing in common with insects. The device in question helps control colour and is aimed at helping both professionals and amateur designers and photographers to accurately manage colour.

The “Spyder”, the brainchild of an Eichhof subsidiary in the United States, measures colour and is being hailed as a breakthrough in digital imaging.

“If you take a photograph and put it into your computer, traditionally the colours don’t match. The blue jacket might not be as blue as you remember it,” explained Dave Crozier, CEO of the Eichhof subsidiary, Datacolor International.

Accurate colour

“Using the products of our ColorVision company, you can calibrate so that you get accurate colour on the screen, but more importantly you can calibrate your printer so that what you see on the screen is what you’ll get out of the print,” he told swissinfo.

The “Spyder” packs eight silicon detector chips with seven colour filters into a package that attaches to the PC monitor with suction pads.

By running the PhotoCal software provided, a monitor profile is created which loads itself automatically each time you start your PC.

Until it bought the start-up ColorVision company, Datacolor International had made a name for itself as the world’s leading supplier of instruments, software and systems to communicate and manage colour in industry.

Datacolor manufactures instruments called spectrophotometers to measure colour in a wide range of applications, for example inks and packaging, paint, paper, plastics and textiles.

Better than the eye

They can see and measure colour much better than the human eye which although very good, cannot match the machine.

“Where we fail with an eye is the ability to look at colour, come back the next day and say, “Is that the same yellow or the same blue. We don’t have good colour memory,” Crozier explained.

Although Datacolor operates in a niche market, it was hit last year by consolidation and bankruptcies in the worldwide textile industry. That reduced customers and sales.

The Far East

“What’s happened additionally is that the industry is transferring to the Far East where there is large capacity and very low manufacturing costs. We’ve tried to respond to that by increasing our presence in the Far East through the number of sales people we have and the offices we have in that region,” he said.

As an example, Datacolor is closing its office in Singapore and relocating to Shanghai where the potential for business with the textile industry is greater.

However, Crozier told swissinfo that the future for Datacolor is in the digital imaging side where sales have climbed fivefold to SFr4 million ($2.35 million) last year.

“We see that really growing as digital photography continues to move to the consumer level,” he said.

Potential market

“But moving from professionals to consumers is a little bit scary. As an example, more than one million digital cameras were sold in December in the United States alone.”

“If each one of those people bought a “Spyder” obviously Datacolor would become significantly larger than it is. But it’s also a question of servicing those customers, answering their questions and making the products so simple that anyone can use them,” he said.

Eichhof, which had its headquarters in Lucerne, has invested about SFr20 million over the past few years on developing the products and pushing the businesses.

“We believe that there is enormous potential in digital colour communication, and the calibration of printers and screens,” Eichof CEO Werner Dubach told swissinfo.

“We have a very specific position there because we are alone today in that business. It’s an interesting development that we are going to follow,” he added.

by Robert Brookes