LightMap™ · authentication with no database
Every item, its own night sky.
When Intelligent Material is printed or sprayed, the crystals land wherever chance puts them. Under a pulsed infrared laser that random scatter lights up like stars: a pattern no one can plan, copy or print twice, not even us. That pattern is a LightMap™.
Step one · see only the crystals
Turn off the world. Keep the stars.
Paper, cardboard and plastic glow faintly under a steady laser, often brighter than the ink itself. Our crystals keep glowing after the light switches off. Pulse the laser, wait a moment, then look: the background has gone dark and only the crystals remain.
Step two · from sparkle to signature
Ten stars make a fingerprint.
A camera does the work in a fraction of a second. It finds the mark, turns it to a standard position, keeps only the brightest crystals, and measures the ten brightest: how far each sits from the center and at what angle. Those numbers are the LightMap™, small enough to fit in a barcode.
| # | X | Y | Size | Distance | Angle |
|---|
Step three · no database
The fingerprint rides on the barcode.
On the production line, a camera captures each item's LightMap™ the moment the ink is printed. It is digitized, signed with the manufacturer's private key and printed straight over the item's barcode. Anyone checking the item reads both: the code says what the stars should look like, the reader sees what they do look like. No server, no lookup, no connection needed.
A central database
- Capture the fingerprint at the factory.
- Upload it to a server and keep it there for the life of the product.
- Every check needs a connection and a lookup, and the database becomes a target.
The item carries its own proof
- Capture the fingerprint at the factory.
- Sign it and print it over the item's barcode.
- Any reader checks the item on the spot, offline. Nothing to host, nothing to hack.
The signature matters: without the manufacturer's private key, nobody can print a valid LightMap™ code for a different pattern. Copying the label copies the code, but not the crystals.
Try it · check an item
What the code says. What the reader sees.
The reader decodes the expected LightMap™ from the barcode, images the crystals, lines the two up and multiplies them point by point. A genuine item scores near one. Anything else falls apart.
LightMap™ for electronics
Spray the board. Map every chip.
Mix Intelligent Material into the conformal coating that already protects circuit boards and spray it on. The coating flows around every chip, resistor and solder joint, so each component gets its own LightMap™ and the whole board gets one too. Replace a chip and its patch of the map goes dark, like North Korea in a satellite photo at night.
Chips swapped in the supply chain
A recycled or fake chip arrives without the original coating map.
Tamper evidence
Any rework, probing or replacement leaves a visible hole in the map.
Is this our board?
Service centers confirm the board, and every part on it, is original.
Checked in the field
A handheld imager reads the coating map without opening anything else.
Where LightMap™ works
Anything you can print on or coat.
Wherever crystal ink, varnish or coating goes, a LightMap™ comes with it, at no extra step on the line beyond a camera and a second print.
Cartons and labels
A signed LightMap™ in the serialization code links the pack to its own physical fingerprint.
Tags, labels, seals
A shopper's phone checks the code; an inspector's reader checks the stars.
Certificates and IDs
Each document carries a printed proof of its own unique pattern.
LightMap™ is a trademark of Intelligent Material Solutions, Inc. Images on this page are illustrations drawn by IMS; processing steps follow IMS laboratory work on printed marks and conformal-coated boards.
Partners wanted
A fingerprint that proves itself.
We are looking for packaging, printing, electronics and defense partners to put LightMap™ on their lines.
