A Color Appearance Model Applicable in Mesopic Vision

We propose a color vision model that can be used to predict color appearance in mesopic vision as well as photopic and scotopic vision. It is based on a two-stage model which consists of the cone and opponent stages and it assumes rod intrusion at the opponent stage. The model has the following features to describe the color appearance in mesopic vision. First, it includes a gradual and nonlinear shift in spectral luminous efficiency from V (LD) to V (LD) to cope with the spectral sensitivity difference between photopic and scotopic vision and the nonlinearity of rod influence on the luminance channel. Second, the model assumes decrease of the chromatic component with decreasing illuminance to explain the reduction of saturation at low illuminance levels. Third, it assumes that red/green and yellow/blue components change with illuminance levels independently, thus explaining hue shifts with decreasing illuminance. We applied the model for color appearance simulation of natural scenes in a mesopic visual environment.     

低光泽度印刷色谱色貌数据组的建立与评价

色貌预测是现代颜色科学领域的基本理论和技术。为了评价低光泽度彩色印刷色谱的色貌,以丽印胶版纸印制的彩色印刷色谱为研究对象,根据颜色科学和心理物理学相关实验,建立其色貌参数样本数据组。采用相对系数R2和差异系数CV等数理统计方法,评价这种印刷色谱中Y-M内页在三种不同的照明光源下色貌的视觉评估结果。实验数据分析表明,在D65、A和TL84三种光源中,人眼在A光源下对颜色的识别能力明显不同于D65和TL84光源;同样在这三种光源中人眼对明度和色调的评估准确度最高,彩度最差。     

颜色视觉匹配中显示器颜色色差阈值的评价

为了对阴极射线管(Cathode ray tube,CRT)显示器颜色恰可辨别的小色差阈值进行评价,在中性灰背景下,用编制的颜色匹配程序,在CRT显示器上随机产生颜色,分别调节程序中R、G、B通道的值,使匹配色与随机色达到视觉上的一致,进行颜色视觉匹配实验,测量CRT显示器上随机色和匹配色的L*a*b*值.用不同的色差公式对实验数据分别从明度、色调、饱和度进行比较分析,色差公式评价小色差的性能是CIEDE2000优于CMC(2∶1)和CIEL*a*b*.在a*b*图上绘制实验颜色恰可辨别图.不同色差公式计算的CRT显示器恰可辨别小色差阈值不同.     

Color Appearance Determined by Recognition of Space

The color appearance was measured for a test patch which was placed in a test room illuminated by daylight lamps and was looked at from a subject room illuminated by one of four colored illuminations, red, yellow, green and blue, through windows of various sizes. When the window was small so that only the test patch was seen within the window the color of the test patch appeared almost opponent to the illumination color, but as soon as something was seen within the window of a larger size the color returned to the original color of the test patch. To recognize the test room as a space was essential to perceive the real color of the test patch. The results were explained by the concept of the recognized visual space of illumination.     

Measurement of Color Constancy by Color Memory Matching

Degree of color constancy was measured when color memory was involved in color comparison judgment. We used the Optical Society of America (OSA) Uniform Color Scales as stimulus color samples, and chose 20 color samples as test stimuli. Four illuminants of 1700, 3000, 6500, and 30, 000 K were tested. The observer, completely adapted to a test illuminant, saw a test color sample and stored its color in his memory. After being readapted to the reference white (6500 K), he started selecting a color sample from among the 424 OSA samples which matched the test sample in his memory. We employed a memory matching method called cascade color matching, in which the number of selected color-samples was gradually reduced in four stages. In the final stage, the observer selected a color sample. The results show that, for most test colors, the distributions of selected colors in stages 1 to 4 were similar among all illuminants, and that the u’v’ chromaticity distance between a test color under 6500 K and its matched color was quite short. These indicate that good color constancy was retained in memory color comparison.     

Color Appearance Explained,Predicted and Confirmed by the Concept of Recognized Visual Space of Illumination

Ten years have passed since we proposed a new concept called recognized visual space of illumination (RVSI). The central idea of the concept assumes that our brain first recognizes how a space is illuminated and then judges colors of anything seen in the space in relation to the RVSI constructed for the space. In another expression we say that the space is recognized first and the color perception next. In this paper some of our experiments that proved the appropriateness of the concept will be introduced. When a white paper was seen through a colored filter we could perceive the paper as white at the same instant we recognized a space through and beyond the filter. When an achromatic patch independent from the room illumination was observed under colored illumination its appearance immediately changed to that roughly opponent to the illumination color. When two gray patches of the same lightness were drawn in a picture of a white grating on a black background on a way that one appeared to locate on this side of the grating and the other in the other side, the former appeared brighter. These all confirmed the predictions based on the RVSI concept.     

Color Appearance of a Patch Explained by RVSI for the Conditions of Various Colors of Room Illumination and of Various Luminance Levels of the Patch

Whenever we enter a space illuminated differently from a previous space whether in color or in illuminance, we can quickly adapt to the new atmosphere and can again perceive white for the originally white object; this is known as color constancy. This phenomenon is explained by rotation of the recognition axis of the recognized visual space of illumination (RVSI) toward the illumination color. The explanation then predicts that the color appearance of a test patch changes radically toward the opposite direction from the color of illumination when the physical property of the test patch is kept unchanged at a neutral white. This prediction was confirmed by Experiment 1, where eight different colors of illumination were employed. The test patch appeared very vivid in color and shifted toward the opposite direction from the color of the illumination. In RVSI theory the light source color mode is explained by the release of the test patch from the restriction of RVSI. The release can be achieved by increasing the luminance of the test patch and the color appearance of the patch should then return to its own color as it is no longer controlled by RVSI. In Experiment 2 these predictions were investigated by increasing the luminance of the test patch to a much higher level than that of the objects in the lit room fixed at an illuminance of about 1001x. The color appearance of the test patch indeed became the light source color and returned to the original neutral white. Emphasis was given in the course of the experiments that the subjects were observing the test patch presented in a real 3D space where the subjects also stayed inside so that they could properly construct RVSI for the space.     

Information Flow in Biological Networks for Color Vision

Biological neural networks for color vision (also known as color appearance models) consist of a cascade of linear + nonlinear layers that modify the linear measurements at the retinal photo-receptors leading to an internal (nonlinear) representation of color that correlates with psychophysical experience. The basic layers of these networks include: (1) chromatic adaptation (normalization of the mean and covariance of the color manifold); (2) change to opponent color channels (PCA-like rotation in the color space); and (3) saturating nonlinearities to obtain perceptually Euclidean color representations (similar to dimension-wise equalization). The Efficient Coding Hypothesis argues that these transforms should emerge from information-theoretic goals. In case this hypothesis holds in color vision, the question is what is the coding gain due to the different layers of the color appearance networks? In this work, a representative family of color appearance models is analyzed in terms of how the redundancy among the chromatic components is modified along the network and how much information is transferred from the input data to the noisy response. The proposed analysis is performed using data and methods that were not available before: (1) new colorimetrically calibrated scenes in different CIE illuminations for the proper evaluation of chromatic adaptation; and (2) new statistical tools to estimate (multivariate) information-theoretic quantities between multidimensional sets based on Gaussianization. The results confirm that the efficient coding hypothesis holds for current color vision models, and identify the psychophysical mechanisms critically responsible for gains in information transference: opponent channels and their nonlinear nature are more important than chromatic adaptation at the retina.     

The Brain Adaptation to the Color of Illumination and not the Retinal Adaptation to the Color of Objects that Determines the Color Appearance of an Object in the Space

Color appearance was measured for a test patch which was placed in a test room illuminated by the daylight type of illumination and was looked at from the subject room illuminated by one of the four colored illuminations, red, yellow, green, and blue, through a window of three different sizes. When the window was the smallest so that only the test patch was seen within the window the color of the test patch appeared almost opponent to the illumination color, but as soon as something is seen within the window of larger size the color returned to the original color of the test patch to indicate the color constancy. To recognize the test room as a space was essential to perceive the real color of the test patch. This returning to the original colors was not influenced by green color of objects densely placed in the test room or by red color of objects again densely placed in the test room. The results imply that the color appearance of the test patch is not determined by the retinal chromatic adaptation, but by the brain adaptation to color of the illumination in the space.     

颜色视觉匹配中明度阈值的评价

为了对颜色视觉匹配中的明度阈值特性进行评价,采用在阴极射线管显示器上获得的颜色刺激,在5个不同明度的中性色背景下,标准刺激的明度L*从5到95以5个CIELAB单位为变化步长,共对19个不同明度的中性标准颜色进行视觉匹配实验。通过对实验结果的处理和分析,验证了关于颜色刺激视觉辨别明度阈值与背景明度之间相关性的韦伯法则和crispening效应,同时利用颜色视觉匹配数据对基于CIELAB的相关色差公式进行了评价和比较,CIEDE2000具有最好的明度差预测性能,CMC次之,CIELAB和CIE94最差。     

Color Zone Map in Peripheral Vision at Various Illuminance Levels

We measured the entire region of mesopic and photopic vision to determine the color zone covering the visual field with unique red, yellow, green, and blue hue components. Eight kinds of test stimuli in the natural color system (NCS) color notation system were used. These stimuli were presented at horizontal and vertical meridians, and at meridians inclined at 45° angles. The illuminance level was set at six levels: 0.01 lx-1000 lx. The evaluation method measured chromatic, white, and black components as well as the hue component of the stimuli. Results show that the color zone of the retina extended further into the periphery with increasing illuminance; the response of opponent colors y-b was shown to be greater than that of the opponent colors r-g.     

Size Effect of the Immediate Surround for the Border between the Natural and Unnatural Object Color Appearance

The border luminance of the test stimulus between the natural and unnatural object color, y_ynB_u was obtained for different spatial sizes of the immediate surround to prove that _nB_u can be determined based on a new recognized visual space of illumination (RVSI) that is assumed to be constructed for the immediate surround separately from the RVSI for the subjects room itself. The _nB_u of five test stimuli were determined for six different sizes covering from zero to 1866 cm² with four different lightnesses, N4, N6 and N8, while keeping the room illuminance constant at 100 or 600 lx. The results showed that luminance of the border _nB_u gradually decreased as the size of the immediate surround was increased and that the decrease was larger for immediate surround with lower lightness. The results were interpreted as showing a new RVSI constructed for the spatial extent of the immediate surround of the test stimulus, and the RVSI was more completely constructed for larger spatial size of the immediate surround. © 2005 The Optical Society of Japan     

不同环境参数下CIECAM02的跨媒体颜色复现性能

为研究CIECAM02三种环境参数(dark,dim,average)在三种相应照明环境下的跨媒体颜色复现性能,基于记忆匹配和成对比较的心理物理学实验方法,在灯箱照明打印样本与Dark,Dim,Average三种不同环境照明条件下液晶显示器显示色样之间进行了跨媒体颜色复现实验。实验数据分析表明,采用dim环境参数在三种照明条件下都能达到较优的颜色复现性能,而dark和average参数性能与测试颜色的明度和彩度存在一定相关性,较暗色样在Dark条件下采用dark参数设置复现良好,但在Average实验条件下采用average参数设置时性能很差;对于较亮色样的复现,dark与average参数设置在其相应实验条件下的颜色复现性能无显著差异。     

复杂显示中诱导域彩度对目标色貌的影响

用双目不对称匹配法测试了在复杂显示中目标色貌与其周围诱导域彩度的关系。结果表明：当保持目标与周围的色调相同且亮度不变,只改变诱导域的彩度时,色诱导引起的目标色觉位移的大小随诱导域彩度的增加而增加,色觉位移的方向大多数不随诱导域彩度改变,基本指向该色调彩度降低的方向。     

用伪同色光谱图像检测色觉正常观察者的锥细胞光谱响应

为了能够快速、准确的检测色觉正常观察者的辨色差异,从而对其红、绿、蓝三通道的锥细胞光谱响应进行研究,设计并制作了由背景层（或和明度层）以及数字层组成的伪同色光谱图像,其中背景层和数字层具有不同的光谱反射曲线,经过照明光源以及人眼锥细胞光谱响应的共同作用,使色觉正常的观察者产生不同的颜色感知差异。实验首先基于不同光谱原色的输出设备,在不同的照明光源下,制作出能够放大观察者差异的近同色异谱色样对。要求用不同颜色匹配函数计算近同色异谱色样对的CIEDE2000色差值,有的色差在人眼辨色阈值之内,有的色差人眼可明显识别。通过优化计算,将放大观察者色觉差异的近同色异谱色样对应用于伪同色光谱图像的数字层和背景层,并利用Epson Stylus Pro7908喷墨打印机和OKI C9600激光打印机分别输出伪同色光谱图像的背景层和数字层。同时组织了72名色觉正常的观察者（包含55名18～25岁的年轻观察者和17名62～74岁的老年观察者）分别在D65和LED-5000K两种光源下,对伪同色光谱图像进行识读检验。识读结果表明,伪同色光谱图像可以较为准确的判定年轻和老年观察者的视网膜锥细胞光谱响应是否老化。同种照明光源下,年轻观察者可以识读出数字的伪同色光谱图像（②/④）老年观察者不能识读,老年观察者可以识读的伪同色光谱图像（①/③）大多年轻观察者不能识读,且55名年轻观察者中有4名观察者的目视结果与老年人相同。另外,年轻观察者的锥细胞光谱响应与CIE1964和CIE2006（age=25 y）颜色匹配函数较为一致,而老年观察者的锥细胞光谱响应与CIE1931和CIE2006（age=75 y）颜色匹配函数更为一致。对比颜色匹配函数的分布,发现老年观察者的锥细胞光谱响应向长波段偏移,同时由于屈光系统光学密度增加导致其锥细胞光谱响应有所降低。     

Estimation of Bluish Appearance of Veins in Skin Tissue Using Spectrocolorimetry

The bluish appearance of veins in the skin tissue was experimentally investigated by in vivo and in vitro spectrophotometric measurements. Color of the skin surface including the veins was quantitatively evaluated by employing color perception on the basis of CIEXYZ and CIELAB colorimetric systems. For in vivo measurements, the bluish appearance of veins was successfully estimated using a dominant wavelength, excitation purity, and color difference. Results of in vitro experiments using a simple skin tissue model demonstrated that the degree of bluish appearance depends on the vessel depth, diameter, and the blood content in the surrounding medium.     

Computerized Simulation and Chromatic Adaptation Experiments Based on a Model of Aged Human Lens

Color appearance seen by old people does not significantly differ from that seen by young subjects even though their ocular lens has become more yellow with age. We calculated the age-related change of lights reflected from Munsell color chips onto the retina, and derived results that show that the chromaticity values of all the color chips shifted to the yellow region of the xy-chromaticity diagram. However, a replot on the CIELAB diagram and the estimation by means of the von Kries adaptation model suggests that old people may compensate their color vision using a general chromatic adaptation process. To test this hypothesis, we conducted two experiments: a chromatic adaptation experiment and a color matching experiment to simulate D65-lights as seen by older people but using young subjects. The results indicate that chromatic adaptation does not provide a complete explanation for color compensation by older people, suggesting that an age-related change of the yellow-blue opponent color mechanism may contribute to this compensation.     

Color Discrimination Characteristics Depending on the Background Color in the (<Emphasis Type="Italic">L</Emphasis>, <Emphasis Type="Italic">M</Emphasis>) Plane of a Cone Space

We investigated color discriminability on the background color. The measurement was carried out at over 21 background colors in (L, M) plane of a cone space by four observers. We used low temporal stimulus frequency (1 Hz) so that threshold was determined by the red-green opponent mechanism. Results showed that color discriminability depends on the background colors. Threshold was higher with a more saturated background color. This suggests that the sensitivity of the red-green opponent mechanism is high when the mechanism’s output is small and increases with the output levels of the mechanism. To confirm this relationship between the red-green mechanism and color discriminability, color appearance depending the background color was also evaluated. There was a strong correlation between the sensitivity and the perceived whiteness. Both sensitivity and whiteness value were highest at around the equal energy white point and decreased with increase in the difference between background color and equal energy white. This suggests that the adaptation state of the red-green opponent color controls color discrimination.     

基于CRT的非对称视觉匹配实验中对立色的显示方法研究

对立色是颜色科学研究中的一类特殊颜色现象,通过对其特殊匹配现象的研究,可以揭示人眼彩色视觉信息传递的规律。针对基于CRT的非对称视觉匹配实验的要求,提出了一种色调均匀分布、强度成线性变化的对立色的定义和显示方法,实现了人眼锥体细胞响应LMS与计算机彩色量化值RGB之间的高精度转换和真彩色再现。     

彩色数字图像色差计算方法的研究

用5幅ISO SCID图像在EIZO CG19显示器上分别进行了两组图像色差等级评价实验。两组实验分别在室内自然照明环境和标准灯箱中进行,用目视评价实验数据检验并优化彩色图像色差的计算公式。用CIELAB、CIEDE2000、CIE94和CMC色差公式对第一组实验数据计算结果表明,现有色差公式计算的图像明度差和彩度差与实际色差感觉有明显的系统性差异,图像内容对计算色差与色差感觉的关系有一定影响,说明需要对原始色差公式进行改进。提出了用实验数据拟合直线斜率比值优化色差公式的方法,得到CIELAB(1.50:1)、CIEDE2000(2.29:1)、CIE94(3.04:1)和CMC(3.38:1)计算的色差比原始公式有明显的改善,其中CIEDE2000(2.29:1)计算结果受图像内容的影响最小。用第二组实验数据检验色差公式的优化效果也证明,这种优化方法准确,简单,具有普遍适用性。