PSYCHO-PHYSICAL ANALYSIS OF PAPER AND A NEW DESIGN CONCEPT OF PAPER MEDIA FOR THE NEXT CENTURY

In the society of the 21\ulcorner century under multiphase media conditions, the rapidly glowing electronic media will replace the conventional paper media in a variety of areas. However, if human being still has an affinity for paper media and an instinct for hardcopy from electronic-based text or image, the new market will be created for the paper industry. To what extent the consumer choses paper media for output will depend upon the availability of functions of paper media appealing to human senses; i.e., "sensory functions of paper". As a whole, on-demand type personal as well as business communications will increase in the next century and this trend will lead certainly to a rapidly expanding "contents hardcopy market". The technological progress of the paper industry in the 21\ulcorner century depends upon the market needs for higher products quality and higher efficiency of manufacturing process as well as an endeavour to overcome constraints from forest resource, energy, and environmental issues. Under the conditions with above constraints, the paper media will be polarized into two categories; (1)paper for higher image reproduction capability for original image or text and (2)paper for lower reproduction but with higher appeals for human senses. To cope with these trends, psycho-physical analysis and a sensory engineering approach for developing new paper media is vitally required. Also newly emerged roles of paper physics in the multimedia age is pointed out associated with sensory functions of paper that are not well-understood so far.