80 Products and Markets AUROOM® – The Future of Automotive Color Design is Digital By Jörg Zumkley, Global Communications Coatings, BASF Coatings GmbH In the world of automotive design, every nuance counts. Colors are more than just aesthetic expressions – they shape brand identities, influence purchasing decisions, and reflect technological innovation. With AUROOM®, the digital platform for the entire color development process, a new era of color creation begins – fast, precise, and virtually immersive. What is AUROOM®? AUROOM® is a digital, web-based platform that supports OEM design teams throughout the color development process. It digitizes automotive paint colors at the highest quality and integrates them directly into global color workflows – for faster communication, better-informed decisions, and fewer physical samples. Virtual Colors with Real Impact The platform uses precise measurement data and mathematical models to realistically render colors on various virtual objects – such as domes, panels, or the AUVOTs (virtual vehicle forms) developed by BASF Coatings. These digital 3D car models represent different vehicle segments, allowing designers to assess colors in motion and in the full vehicle context. On any of these objects, new trend colors can be discovered, compared, and visualized in near-real quality. Even the slightest change in hue or effect particles can significantly impact the visual impression of a vehicle. To represent these nuances digitally with precision and reproducibility, a simple visual assessment by eye is not enough – objective, measurable standards are required. With the newly developed Virtual Color Demonstrator, which is patent-pending, BASF Coatings introduces a groundbreaking solution that bridges the traditional physical sampling process with innovative digital technology. This system enables the evaluation of real paint samples under standardized lighting conditions and allows direct comparison with their digital counterparts on a monitor. At the heart of this innovation is a digital twin of the light booth, based on physical measurement data. The position of the real sample is tracked in real time and integrated into the virtual visualization. This creates a hybrid evaluation process, enabling objective and visually convincing assessment of digital paints. With the Virtual Color Demonstrator, BASF Coatings builds trust in digital color communication – an essential step toward more efficient future design processes. A New Level of Color Development AUROOM® is more than just a visualization tool – it is an integral part of the entire design and development process. Designers can create, archive, and share their own color collections with teams around the world. Projects can be managed in a structured way: from the initial idea, through briefings and task assignments, to variant comparisons and final approvals. All information is available at any time – centralized, clearly organized, and version-controlled. “Digitally supporting the color development process with AUROOM® makes everything faster and easier. We can collaborate with design teams on colors, work with them interactively, and bring them to life virtually – including all effects and specific characteristics,” says Michaela Finkenzeller, Color Designer at BASF Coatings. The platform not only provides access to current trend collections but also to a comprehensive color database. This ensures design teams stay ahead of the curve and can start exchanging ideas about potential styles and color directions – often weeks before physical samples are available. Technology That Sets New Standards At the core of AUROOM® is a patented scanning process that captures physical color panels under spectrally filtered light. The resulting data is converted into optimized AxF files, which can be seamlessly integrated into standard 3D engines. This enables highly realistic digital color rendering – including gloss, flop, effects, and texture. Thanks to this technology, color variants can be rendered directly onto CAD models, experienced in VR, or compared in real time. The result: better decisions, fewer feedback loops, and a significantly accelerated development process. In addition, CMF designers can selectively download the optimized AxF files from the platform to use them in OEM-specific visualization tools and workflows. AUROOM® incl. Video Graphic: © BASF Coatings With the AUROOM® platform, automotive colors can be digitally visualized and compared.
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