System and method for visualization of variances observed on substrate surfaces

A method for controlling production of color products, comprising:

• receiving a reference image for a color product;
• producing over the course of at least a portion of a production run a plurality of color products corresponding to the color product in the reference image;
• acquiring a plurality of images corresponding to the plurality of color products;
• determining whether an appearance defect exists for each of the plurality of color products by comparing each image of the plurality of images corresponding to the plurality of color products to the reference image;
• for each detected appearance defect, determining a severity of the appearance defect;
• and
• generating a visualization of appearance defects on a visualization image comprising the reference image of the color product based on the severity of the appearance defect and a frequency of occurrence of the appearance defect to visualize an accumulation of a plurality of appearance defects on the reference image based on each appearance defect detected in each of the plurality of images corresponding to the plurality of color products produced over the course of the at least a portion of a production run;
• adjusting production of the color product in response to the visualization of appearance defects to reduce the severity or frequency of occurrence of the appearance defect.