Glyph-O-Matic
Plots four measured characteristics on one Cartesian plane. Each gets its own half-axis, and the shape joining the four points is the sample’s signature: wide and flat for a smooth, glossy paper, tall and narrow for a rough, matte one.
Measurements
Tip: drag any of the four points on the plot to change its value directly.
| Characteristic | Axis | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Texture | +Y | 45 |
| Gloss | +X | 60 |
| Thickness | −Y | 35 |
| Color | −X | 70 |
How to read a glyph
All four arms share the same 0–100 scale, so the distance of a point from the origin is directly comparable between arms and between samples. Two samples with the same signature plot as the same shape, which is what makes the glyph useful for sorting a collection at a glance.
- Wide and flat. High gloss and color, low texture and thickness.
- Tall and narrow. A rough, thick paper with little gloss.
- Lopsided. One characteristic dominates, and the point furthest from the origin names it.
The signature, for example T45 G60 K35 C70, is also the exported filename, so saved
PNGs stay matched to their measurements.
Where this idea ended up. The lab went on to build Paperbase, a public database that plots its whole paper collection on four standardized metrics: thickness, gloss, roughness and warmth. Those are the four arms of this glyph, with texture as roughness and color as warmth. This page plots one sample at a time; Paperbase plots all 7,500 papers at once.