Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English en
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

Why does It Look Different? - Material Appearance International Doctoral Network

Objective

Human evolution has endowed us with refined visual and cognitive skills, enabling material appearance assessment across diverse conditions and contexts. While the physics of light transport within materials is well understood, the visual mechanisms underlying perceptual equivalence among materials remain largely unexplored, and no reliable metric currently quantifies perceptual differences between them. This gap is a critical barrier to advancing aesthetic product design and manufacturing, particularly with the advent of complex designs featuring visual (color, gloss, translucency, texture) and haptic (softness, roughness) attributes made possible by new manufacturing technologies like multimaterial 3D printing. These innovations facilitate decentralized production, reducing supply chain dependence and energy consumption while enabling high-quality, customized parts, such as aesthetic dental restorations. However, current quality control methods rely on subjective visual inspection, creating variability and limiting reproducibility, especially for products requiring high appearance accuracy. To overcome this, appearance difference metrics are essential for quality control and design adjustments in line with manufacturing constraints (Appearance Gamut Mapping).
Furthermore, generative AI (genAI) models in automatic product design require differentiable loss functions that capture human perception of material appearance. The WILD MAIDN project aims to establish foundational metrics for appearance difference and equivalence, advancing visual perception science and providing tools for automated, perceptually-driven design and production that can ultimately support future genAI applications.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-DN - HORIZON TMA MSCA Doctoral Networks

See all projects funded under this funding scheme

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-DN-01

See all projects funded under this call

Coordinator

NORGES TEKNISK-NATURVITENSKAPELIGE UNIVERSITET NTNU
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 359 728,64
Address
HOGSKOLERINGEN 1
7491 TRONDHEIM
Norway

See on map

Region
Norge Trøndelag Trøndelag
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

No data

Participants (7)

Partners (7)

My booklet 0 0