The general method measures hiding power of pigmented material based on varying layer thickness. A new measuring technique was developed by varying the substrate pattern and using the substrate with different gray levels to improve the efficiency and accuracy of the hiding power measurement. Considering the propagation of light after incidence in the layer according to the phenomenological theory, a mathematical model was proposed to simulate the covering ability of the pigment to measure its hiding power based on the systematic analysis of the CIELAB colour differences for the samples before and after painting on the specially designed substrate. The experimental comparison with the existent methods, including Deutsches Institute fur Normung(DIN), American Society for Testing and Materials(ASTM) and spectral evaluation methods, shows that the proposed technique can measure the hiding power accurately and rapidly, with the relative accuracy of 01 %～11 % compared with the referenced results from DIN method. This new method outperforms ASTM and spectral evaluation methods for non-coloured pigment and colourful pigment as well.