Full Color Sandstone - Not True Color?

When my 3D item arrived as Full Color Sandstone,
it seems that it is not really RED as intended but
more like ORANGE.
Is there a particular HEX code that should be used to
get a true color?
Thanks!
Ray
OS: Debian Squeeze
Software: Blender 2.49

I had someone describe it as similar to a color photocopy from the 1980's.

Details will get blurred, color will be imprecise.

I've been adding solid blocks of color to my textures and mapping them to elements of the model individually.

Thanks for the advice.
So you think that texture mapping
is the better way to go to get accurate colors?

I actually didnt know there was any other way. How did you specify the red to be used in yours?

I've always uploaded a Wrl file with a jpg map. (from 3dMax).

(Colors still come out blurry and washed out though. ie, xerox circa 1986).

There is also vertex mapping. Check out this post where printing results have previously been examined.

Actually, I used Blender 2.49 (I'm definitely no expert)
I originally experimented with texture mapping for sparkly backgrounds but not for colors.
I recently settled on linking the appropriate faces to the color needed within Blender
and exporting as a vrml file.
The result looked great on the Shapeways preview, but the actual printed object not exactly.
I'm going to try texture mapping again and see what happens.

What value were you using for red ? In my limited experience - also using "vertex painting", i.e. attaching color values
to vrml primitives directly, plain RGB red 1.,0.,0. is a bit bright and washed-out, but 0.55,0.09,0.09 gives a nice dark red.
(No personal magic behind these values - this is "Scarlet" as defined in the POV raytracer.)

I used HEX codes. However, I'll try RGB colors and see what I get.

Hex should not be an issue here, unless Blender gets the conversion wrong - they should end up as
triplets of decimal numbers between 0 and 1 in the diffuseColor entries of your vrml or x3d file.

Wow.

Thanks. That opens up a whole new realm.

I read the shapeways "tutorials" and didnt see any mention of that,

Typical of shapeways.

Typical that you sometimes have to search through the forum to learn more,
typical that there is a forum where you can learn from others,
or both ?

Well since you ask...

When a "Tutorial" is provided by the printing service I dont assume that there's further information that requires me to search a user forum to find.

I just assumed that the information related to a particular material would be complete. Is that too much for a customer to expect?

http://shpws.me/lUx1
Check the additional images of this wafer.. one of them has the hex colors used.
This object is very small.. not quite 3/4" across, and the pads are very close, such that there is quite a bit of bleeding between the colors.

Our tutorials aren't perfect. If you see anything that needs to be improved let us know. One problem is there are lots of different software packages, that do things differently. The best way to find out how to do something say in Blender, is to go to a Blender community. You can always ask on our forums, we have lots of Blender Junkies, and our European community manager, Bart, is quite the Blender Guru.

Based on tests try R 0x91 (or 0xB6 for a lighter and a bit orange red), G 0x24, B 0x00 (or 0x24). That model is printed using UV mapping with PNG files (same 3D app, GIMP for the images). You aren't going to get photo quality anyway, and the color will vary with orientation and coating.

The model also shows strange behaviours, maybe visual illusions, maybe the printer selecting poor ink mixes, as in some of the grids you can see some squares "repeating" instead of changing in progression, or going "against" what would you hope. In the second photo of the printed model you can see the 0x24 zone with the colors suggested (look at the blue-red wall, they are near the edge of that wall with the red-green one), but also a weird square (look at the red-green wall, the first from center is dark violet, the next is dark green, darker, it should be lighter).