X-Rite Incorporated and its subsidiary Pantone LLC, are the winners of this year's world-renowned iF DESIGN AWARD for their Total Appearance Capture (TAC) scanner. The TAC7 scanner is part of a comprehensive solution that brings a new level of accuracy and realism to the capture, communication and digital presentation of physical materials in the virtual world. A team of 58 judges, made up of independent experts from all over the world, reviewed a total of 5,500 entries and selected TAC7 as a winner in the product discipline.

“We’re thrilled to win the prestigious iF Design Award,” said Dr. Francis Lamy, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, X-Rite. “The TAC7 scanner represents a breakthrough in digital material capture and has the potential to transform the product design-to-production process. This award recognizes the dedication of the X-Rite product development team to expanding our solution portfolio beyond color to address the more significant challenge of capturing and managing appearance.”

The TAC7 scanner is part of a full ecosystem that addresses a key challenge in product design – the ability to accurately capture and virtualize today’s increasingly complex materials such as special effect paints and synthetic fabrics. TAC brings virtual designs to life with digital material representations that are truly physically correct. Using the TAC ecosystem, product designers, 3D artists, material specifiers and marketers can scan in physical material samples and create vendor-neutral Appearance Exchange Format (AxF™) files to digitally communicate and share consistent appearance-related data with Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Computer-Aided Design (CAD), and state-of-the art rendering applications. Incorporating the TAC ecosystem into the digital design process helps to improve design time, reduce approval cycles, and accelerate speed to market.

Since 1953, the iF DESIGN AWARD has been awarded annually by Germany's oldest independent design organization, Hannover-based iF International Forum Design GmbH. An entity recognized as an arbiter of quality for exceptional design, it is comprised of a panel of independent experts that assesses each entry strictly and fairly, live and on site, according to a specific set of criteria including degree of innovation, formal quality, functionality and ecological compatibility. The iF label is renowned worldwide for outstanding design services, and the iF DESIGN AWARD is one of the most important design prizes in the world.