Wood chatoyance within different species

ABSTRACT

Wood often shows visible colour anisotropy, appearing different when seen from different angles with respect to lighting and fibres direction. This is commonly known as chatoyance, or chatoyancy, and it is invisible on some wood species while being evident on other. Data from about 12,800 measurements on 218 species are hereby reported and compared against basic brightness showing that perceptual chatoyance reaches its peak in moderate brightness species and that chatoyance mostly affects wood brightness rather than its colour. Finally, results are compared with other parameters such as density, trunk size, origin continent and botanic family showing some correlation.

KEYWORDS:

• Anisotropic brightness
• wood colour
• fibre direction

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research is self-funded by the authors.