Digital 3D wood texture: UV-curable inkjet printing on board surface

Abstract

Natural wood textures are appreciated in most forest products industries for their appealing visual characteristics including grain and color, but also their fine surface tactile sensation. The following presents an ultraviolet (UV)-curable inkjet technology printing 3D wood texture on wood-based substrate by image processing and surface treatment. The UV printing was created from scanned digital images of a real wood surface and processed in graphics software. The images were converted to grayscale graphics by selecting color range and setting the parameter of fuzziness. The grayscale images were printed as 3D texture height simulation on the substrates and coated by printing the color images as texture mapping. Based on these wood texture digital images, the marquetry art is also considered in the images processing design to increase the artistry of the printed materials. The medium-density fiberboard (MDF) coated printing marquetry surface replicate realistic natural 3D wood texture surface layers on wood-based panels and imitated the effect of handcrafted wood art works. This study proves that printing 3D texture surface material is creative and valuable with ecologically friendly, low-consumption UV-curable inkjet technology and provides a feasible and scalable approach in flooring/furniture/decorative architectural panels.