Vecspine ranks your traced spot colors against a bundled Pantone-style library using the perceptually uniform CIEDE2000 metric, and suggests starting mixing recipes in exact grams for your target batch weight. No guesswork, no subscription.
Turns "what ink is this?" from a guess into a ranked, quantitative starting point for the press operator.
Measures the distance between your traced color and the reference library in CIE Lab space using the perceptually uniform CIEDE2000 metric (with a legacy CIE76 toggle).
Ranks the closest Pantone-style references so you can see the exact match and the next best alternatives.
Set a target batch weight (e.g., 100g or 500g) and Vecspine converts the percentage recipe into exact grams for each base ink, ready to be weighed on a 0.1g scale.
Generates a rich HTML report with swatches and a monospace table, plus a column-aligned plain-text copy for your clipboard.
Automatically pulls the flat fill colors from your vector trace, so every spot plate is analyzed without manual selection.
Color conversion, ΔE calculation, and mix formulation all run locally. Unreleased client artwork never leaves your machine.
Trace a raster or import vector artwork. Vecspine automatically extracts the spot color plates and their hex values.
Go to Tools > Ink Matcher & Formulation (Ctrl+Shift+I). Set your target batch weight and let the engine process every extracted spot color.
Review the rich HTML report: original hex, top 3 nearest Pantone matches with ΔE*00 scores, and the suggested mix in exact grams. Copy the plain-text recipe to your clipboard with one click.
ΔE measures the perceptual difference between two colors. Use this table to interpret the CIEDE2000 scores in your formulation report.
| ΔE Value | Perception | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| < 2.0 | Identical | Indistinguishable to the human eye; a perfect match. |
| 2.0 – 5.0 | Close | Noticeable only upon close, side-by-side inspection. |
| 5.0 – 15.0 | Same Family | Visibly different, but clearly a related hue or shade. |
| > 15.0 | Different | A completely different color; the reference is just the "closest available" in the library. |
ΔE (Delta E) is a metric that measures the distance between two colors in the CIE Lab color space. Vecspine uses the perceptually uniform CIEDE2000 metric by default to rank the nearest Pantone-style references, with a legacy CIE76 toggle available.
Vecspine bundles a curated subset of Pantone-style references. If your traced color falls outside this specific library, the nearest available match might still have a high ΔE. Values under 5 are considered close; over 15 means it's a different color family.
The starting mix is a heuristic based on inverse-distance weighting in Lab space. It provides an excellent starting point for the press operator, but real inks on a real substrate still require a physical drawdown or proof to confirm the final match.
You can set a target batch weight (e.g., 100g or 500g) in the dialog. Vecspine converts the percentage mix recipe into exact grams for each base ink, so the press operator can weigh them on a 0.1g scale.
The Ink Matcher is designed for spot color separations. It reads the flat fill colors extracted during the vector trace and matches them against the spot ink library.
Yes. Color conversion, ΔE calculation, and mix formulation all run locally on your machine. Client artwork is never uploaded.
CIEDE2000 ranking, Pantone matching, and starting mix recipes in exact grams — offline, in one click.
