Hi Neil. Sorry for missing your questions (and many others as well) on the forum, but family health issues have taken a turn for the worse so the time I can put into this forum has decreased dramatically and this may not change for some time. My sincerest apologies to all. I will still do what I can though. 
I have used ArgyllCMS for spot readings and the Spotread -i setting will let you choose D65 for CIE readings. I don't believe the i1Pro2 lamp is natively D50 (but I could be wrong); I know the I1Pro's lamp that I use isn't, it's listed simply as "tungsten".
My custom spreadsheet basically uses the Lindbloom spreadsheet to do all math calculations from the raw spectral data, including generation of RGB data. I did not personally write all of my spreadsheet so I hesitate to share it, sorry. There is a free program called OpenRGB that I use a lot as well that gives readings in a number of color spaces including RGB.
The BOC samples I have are all about N9 and have no gloss to them at all so I would guess that their gain would be the same, or very close to, a Lambertian surface the same color. According to OpenRGB that gain would be ~0.76 (the Y value of the XYZ reading).
The purpose of adding aluminum or mica flakes to a paint or paint mix is to increase reflection over what gloss can do alone. Aluminum is better for projection screens because it is an opaque solid so light cannot be refracted by it. Mica flakes of the size used in "metallic" or "pearl" paints are transparent and there WILL be some refraction (color shifting) caused by that. That refraction can be controlled by using enough opaque paint (white or gray) to absorb most of that refraction. That is the real difference between C&S™ Ultra and the mixes promoted on AVS. The AVS mica-based mixes even make this refraction worse by using clear polyurethane to make their mixes even more translucent thus increasing the refractive properties of the mix. Our mixes (even the mica-based C&S™ Ultra) have never hot spotted to my recollection or shown other negative refraction attributes. Mech is the one who can do gain testing and this hasn't been done with the new Black Widow Ultra™ mixes at all, and as I recall only the on-axis gain of C&S™ Ultra was done (about 1.0).
The one thing you can be sure of (and please test this to your hearts content) is that the AVS mixes (if you decide to test them) WILL have a noticeable viewing cone. They like to "prove" this isn't so by taking screen photos, but they many times forget to mention that they use the AUTO settings on their camera which means that those side shots that show an equal brilliance ARE compensating for the dimmer image. :doh:
Black Widow Ultra™ and C&S™ Ultra have increased on-axis gains compared to regular paints the same color. This difference will diminish as the gloss level of the regular paint increases. Also, while definitely noticeable, the added gain of our reflectively enhanced mixes doesn't make a night and day difference as we wanted to keep any viewing cone minimal. If there is enough interest in higher gain mixes that are close to hot spotting we may go there as well, but our interests have been more toward a large viewing audience that demands a minimal viewing cone.
I have used ArgyllCMS for spot readings and the Spotread -i setting will let you choose D65 for CIE readings. I don't believe the i1Pro2 lamp is natively D50 (but I could be wrong); I know the I1Pro's lamp that I use isn't, it's listed simply as "tungsten".
My custom spreadsheet basically uses the Lindbloom spreadsheet to do all math calculations from the raw spectral data, including generation of RGB data. I did not personally write all of my spreadsheet so I hesitate to share it, sorry. There is a free program called OpenRGB that I use a lot as well that gives readings in a number of color spaces including RGB.
The BOC samples I have are all about N9 and have no gloss to them at all so I would guess that their gain would be the same, or very close to, a Lambertian surface the same color. According to OpenRGB that gain would be ~0.76 (the Y value of the XYZ reading).
The purpose of adding aluminum or mica flakes to a paint or paint mix is to increase reflection over what gloss can do alone. Aluminum is better for projection screens because it is an opaque solid so light cannot be refracted by it. Mica flakes of the size used in "metallic" or "pearl" paints are transparent and there WILL be some refraction (color shifting) caused by that. That refraction can be controlled by using enough opaque paint (white or gray) to absorb most of that refraction. That is the real difference between C&S™ Ultra and the mixes promoted on AVS. The AVS mica-based mixes even make this refraction worse by using clear polyurethane to make their mixes even more translucent thus increasing the refractive properties of the mix. Our mixes (even the mica-based C&S™ Ultra) have never hot spotted to my recollection or shown other negative refraction attributes. Mech is the one who can do gain testing and this hasn't been done with the new Black Widow Ultra™ mixes at all, and as I recall only the on-axis gain of C&S™ Ultra was done (about 1.0).
The one thing you can be sure of (and please test this to your hearts content) is that the AVS mixes (if you decide to test them) WILL have a noticeable viewing cone. They like to "prove" this isn't so by taking screen photos, but they many times forget to mention that they use the AUTO settings on their camera which means that those side shots that show an equal brilliance ARE compensating for the dimmer image. :doh:
Black Widow Ultra™ and C&S™ Ultra have increased on-axis gains compared to regular paints the same color. This difference will diminish as the gloss level of the regular paint increases. Also, while definitely noticeable, the added gain of our reflectively enhanced mixes doesn't make a night and day difference as we wanted to keep any viewing cone minimal. If there is enough interest in higher gain mixes that are close to hot spotting we may go there as well, but our interests have been more toward a large viewing audience that demands a minimal viewing cone.
