X-Rite Incorporated is helping customers to streamline their workflows with the next generation of its NetProfiler software that can verify, optimise, and certify handheld and benchtop spectrophotometers used at locations worldwide on a regular basis.

With the new NetProfiler 3.0, companies can calibrate spectrophotometers in design departments, on factory floors and in test labs to a single virtual standard, ensuring that colour measurements taken at distant locations are accurate and reliable throughout the supply chain.

Over the past few years, X-Rite's earlier version of NetProfiler has become the standard in textiles, plastics, packaging and coatings industries to optimise the performance of benchtop spectrophotometers that all experience some data drift over time due to age and use. NetProfiler 3.0 now extends the power of profiling to handheld devices with embedded profiling capabilities. 

"We are particularly excited about our new NetProfiler solutions for handheld spectrophotometers, extending the benefits of profiling to new category of devices and customer workflows." said Richard Knapp, product manager for the software. He says all versions of NetProfiler 3.0 have improved speed and stability on personal computers and can be run offline to store profiles on portable USB memory sticks.

Another feature of NetProfiler 3.0 is its capability to profile new families of devices such as sphere-based instruments like the Ci52 for industrial applications. For companies in the graphic arts industry that use the SpectroEye spectrophotometer, NetProfiler 3.0 provides a profiling solution for graphics arts workflow. 

NetProfiler 3.0 can help customers by providing:

confidential reports that detail instrument performance, compliance status by location and instrument, relationships between colour partners, and local auditing and certification; ways to exchange comparative colour data easily anywhere in the world with business partners that may have various types of colour-measurement instruments; and, new cost-effective ceramic calibration media providing equivalent performance to BCRA-II tiles.  With two formats optimised for benchtop or handheld spectrophotometers, the new calibration media offers significantly improved spatial uniformity, consistent targeting, and improved performance – particularly for smaller aperture devices.  The improved calibration media allows the number of colour standards to be reduced, streamlining the profiling process.