Building and opening up digital information on CMF (Color, Material, Finishing)
Enhanced usability with an improved search engine, a material-property comparison toolkit, and more
The Korea Institute of Design Promotion (hereinafter the Institute; President Yoon Sang-heum) announced that it has relaunched the 'CMF Online Archive,' which provides the CMF (Color, Material, Finishing) digital information needed for design and manufacturing.
To support innovative product development by designers and small and medium-sized manufacturers, the Institute launched and has been operating the CMF Online Archive since May of last year.
It currently provides digital information on approximately 1,400 samples from 171 domestic CMF specialist companies, along with supply information on material production and technology implementation.
With this update, the Institute has newly launched a 'Trend Mood Board' service that allows users to intuitively grasp CMF-related design trends through a single image.
Based on advice from CMF experts, the Institute plans to present the trending themes of each quarter in the form of a mood board, linking the data samples in the archive with trend news.
In addition, the Institute enhanced the filter search function so that materials can be explored not only by material type and applied technology but also by various visual impressions (such as Stone like, Glossy, and Rough), and it improved natural-language search so users can easily find the materials they want—thereby increasing information accessibility and search convenience.
Beyond this, the archive provides digital material files to support designers' decision-making, and for some materials it offers a material-property comparison toolkit.
Users can download digital material files and freely apply the materials to modeled product shapes in a rendering program (KeyShot), and they can compare the characteristics of various materials by setting desired property conditions such as price, density, and elastic modulus.
Yoon Sang-heum, President of the Korea Institute of Design Promotion, said, "As consumers' criteria for choosing products become more demanding and as eco-friendly materials and finishing processes grow more important for realizing ESG management, demand for CMF information is increasing," adding, "We will continue to work to lower the information barriers to design and manufacturing through the online CMF Archive."