How do the results of your research lead on to applied research?

Samples used in tests of the ability to sense materials by eye. The shape is constant but the material differs.
(Photograph: Visual Perception and Cognition Laboratory)

This can be explained using the example of material, which I mentioned earlier. Even when seeing an object for the first time, a human being can instantly judge whether it is smooth or coarse. He or she can also, to a certain extent, distinguish the material from which the object is made, and tell whether it is wood, stone, glass, or plastic. We believe that this is because, for a variety of objects, human beings can successfully infer what type of object they are viewing and the material from which it has been made, by recognizing certain invisible features embedded in the image of the object. Yet it is not clear exactly what these features are. If we knew, we could make objects appear to be made from a different material than they actually are, such as make stone appear to be wood, or to make new metal appear aged. For beautiful traditional-craft articles and items of jewelry, it should be possible to explain their value scientifically by analyzing them in terms of their texture. The System for Measuring the Quality of Pearls, which will be introduced later, could be described as equipment that brings this notion into reality.

So this is an example of applied research for making unseen objects visible.

Difference between the foundation applied to two different women, one a make-up specialist and the other a non-specialist (results of joint research with Kanebo Cosmetics)
(Photograph: Visual Perception and Cognition Laboratory)

The human eye is not all-powerful. My original specialty was color science and I have analyzed topics such as the wavelength of light in detail. I have also conducted research into how human beings discern between different colors. In the course of this work I realized that light also contains a great deal of dormant information which human beings cannot discern.
I'd now like to discuss our research into indentifying and determining the state of a coating of foundation cream type make-up, as it serves as a good example of the way information is extracted from minute changes in light wavelengths that human beings cannot discern. Foundation cream is worn to make the skin color more even, and with the naked eye it is difficult to determine how and where it has been applied. However, the use of a filter to accentuate the slight differences in the wavelength characteristics of the light reflected from the foundation-covered skin and the light reflected from the bare skin enables the thickness and uniformity of the foundation coating to be visualized. This allows the state of the coating to be represented in quantitative terms.

Aside from this, we are also engaged in research into functional light source which is the special illumination that changes the way in which objects appear. In spectroscopic terms there are countless different whites in existence, all of which have differing wavelengths—although they all appear as the same white to the human eye. A target object that is normally invisible to the human eye is rendered visible by exposing it to functional light which combines these countless different whites and which is designed to achieve a specific objective.
By way of example, if there were a functional light that made only the insects on vegetables easily visible, this could be used for hygiene management. The inspection of blueberry jam for the presence of foreign bodies is in fact a practical example of this technique and the application of functional light sources can be envisaged in a variety of industrial fields.
As we are constantly aware of the need to put our ideas into practice, our research is primarily concentrating on white functional light sources. Since human beings tend to experience a high degree of stress when working in non-natural light for long periods of time, the most efficient approach is to generate white light that is close to natural light.