What is happening with style measurements?

Providing objective measurements of style characteristics such as crimp frequency, crimp definition, greasy wool colour, dust colour and dust penetration has long been a goal of wool industry technologists. The Woolmark Company and CSIRO have been funding work aimed at achieving this for more than a decade.

CSIRO has developed a commercial prototype instrument and trials to establish if this prototype provides reliable results were conducted in 2001. AWTA Ltd cooperated with the trial work, but development of the instrument was CSIRO's responsibility.

The trials showed that the prototype instruments we not satisfactory from an operational, technical and cost point of view. Consequently future development has been suspended unless further funding becomes available.