Research Focus: On printing problems, colour spaces and neural networks

At the end of April, Christian Greim visited our Lithuanian partner institution, Kaunas University of Applied Sciences, and delivered two presentations at the annual scientific and practical conference ‘Innovations in Publishing, Printing and Multimedia Technologies 2023’. He was one of the three keynote speakers at the conference. His presentation was entitled “The Technology is not the Problem, but the People” and addressed current issues in the printing industry with regard to existing expertise, its utilisation by suppliers and the payment for it.

He gave a second specialist presentation on the findings of his Master’s thesis and his doctoral research project on the “Development of an equidistant colour space, based on his own experiments using neural networks”.

The problem is that in the printing industry – as well as in all other sectors where colour accuracy is crucial – there is no equidistant colour system. In practice, this means that colour differences cannot be clearly quantified. “It would be a major step forward if we could describe colour differences using a single number,” says Greim. To lay the foundations for a new, equidistant colour system, Greim intends to begin his PhD by conducting his own colour difference measurements using a spectrally programmable light source. He then intends to use neural network training methods to identify new colour systems that are as easy to use as the CIE-Lab system for colour values – which is widely used in the printing industry – but which provide unambiguous numerical values for colour differences.

Kaunas University of Applied Sciences has been an Erasmus partner of our university since 2002, shortly after its foundation. Saskia Langhammer, Head of the International Office at our university, comments: “In our experience, Lithuanian universities as a whole are well-positioned for international mobility. There is also a desire for closer links with EU partners. We have four other partners in Lithuania. Christian Greim’s visit to Kaunas is a benefit for both sides and helps to strengthen and deepen the partnership.”

Christian Greim is a research assistant at our university’s Faculty Media Sciences and has been pursuing his PhD since autumn 2022 under the supervision of Anastasios Politis at the University of West Attica (uwa.gr) in Greece. Prof. Dr. rer. nat. habil. Christian Weickhardt and Prof. Dr. rer. nat. habil. Konrad Schöbel, both from HTWK Leipzig, have agreed to act as co-examiners.

Text: Christian Greim
Photos: Osvaldas Mockus, Kauno Kolegija