Inconsistencies between Material Color Selected (RGB values), "Actual" in GrabCAD software, Build Plate color, and printed color with J750

I'm wondering if there is a software issue with GrabCAD when being used for 3D printing; if you input RGB values to set a color for a part, the little window shows you your selected color. The window below the values and color graph shows you the color that the printer can match closest to. The part on the build plate shows a much different color. It left me wondering which hue the J750 would actually print. The colors that end up printed are nowhere near the "actual" color GrabCAD says it will be, and instead are more like the color that shows up on the build plate view.

Examples: I selected RGB values for a tan color; the "actual" color in GrabCAD shows a similar (and acceptable) tan color that the printer can print given the materials loaded. The color that shows up on the part in the build plate doesn't match what the "actual" window shows. What comes out of the printer is a weird shade of yellow-green. (jpg attached)

This has also happened when I manually selected a shade of faint sky blue, set the alpha value to 0.08; it printed a shade of Kelly green. That shade is what showed up on the part on the build plate view. I thought maybe there might be a display discrepancy, but it does seem to print what shows up on the build plate. (jpg attached) Why is there a huge discrepancy between RGB value and what GrabCAD says it will print, and fails to print?

1 Answer

Hi Kelly-

It seems like there are a few things happening here:
* The "Actual Color" in the Settings panel should match the hue of what is shown in the viewer, however changes in opacity are not shown in the viewer. This is a known limitation of our viewer right now, and we will be working to improve it in a future update
* The actual color (green) is pretty far off from the selected color (sky blue), and this is a result of the Color Profile selected in the "Change Materials" panel. Most likely, you do not have a full set of Vero colors (CMYKW) selected, and so the resulting profile is not able to print the full color gamut.
* The resulting printed part matches what's shown in the viewer, I think because there is an incomplete set of materials loaded in your real printer, too. This would make sense, since the "Get printer's loaded materials" button should use what's actually on your printer and then apply the appropriate color profile based on that.

If you'd like to continue troubleshooting this, feel free to reach out to Stratasys customer support, who should be able to help you make sure you've got all the materials loaded properly. http://www.stratasys.com/customer-support/submit-support-request You can also reach out to me to discuss more about how GrabCAD Print works at print@grabcad.com

Thanks
- Danny