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.     

Color constancy demonstrated in a photographic picture by means of a D-up viewer

According to the recognized visual space of illumination concept, space perception is essential for color constancy. It should be possible to experience the color constancy in a picture if we perceive a three-dimensional space in the picture. A dimension-up (D-up) viewer was constructed to perceive a space for a picture. An experimental room illuminated by various color lights was used as the reference scene and the subject determined a picture in which the color impression was matched to that of the room by selecting from 13 different colored pictures of the room. The picture with the color nearest to the color of the room was selected with the D-up viewer implying the existence of color constancy in the picture. When subjects observed a picture in a normal way the picture of the room illuminated in white was selected regardless of the actual room illumination color, confirming no color constancy in the picture.     

Color Property of the Recognized Visual Space of Illumination Controlled by Interior Color as the Initial Visual Information

It was shown that the color property of the recognized visual space of illumination, RVSI was controlled by changing the initial visual information by arranging objects in the room all shifting toward orange direction. We constructed two miniature rooms, D and I, both illuminated by the same daylight type fluorescent lamps but arranged with furniture of different color, those in room I shifting toward color as if they were illuminated by an incandescent lamp. Subjects felt as if room I were illuminated by an incandescent lamp. A test patch was placed midair in each room and its color was judged. When the test patches were placed in room I their colors were all perceived to be shifted toward greenish blue compared to those of test patches placed in room D, in spite of having the same illumination. The results imply that the apparent color of an object is determined not by its chromaticity, but in relation to the color property of the RVSI of the room where the object is observed.     

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.     

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 seen through a colored filter of various sizes

It will provide us an effective method to study the color perception of the elderly if we can employ for young subjects a pair of glasses with color property chosen to simulate that of the elderly. One problem has to be solved before using such glasses based on the concept of the recognized visual space of illumination, that is, the size of the glasses. When a piece of a white paper is seen through a yellow filter in a room, it naturally appears yellowish. But if the observer uses the filter to cover his/her eyes entirely the white paper returns to its original white; this is known as color constancy. Between these two extreme cases, the color is expected to change from yellow to white. Chromaticness and hue of an achromatic test chart of a small or large size were determined by the elementary color naming method when the chart was seen monocularly through a red, yellow, green or blue filter, respectively, placed at various distances from the eyes. Chromaticness was large at around 40% when the visual field through the filter was equal to or smaller than the test chart, but it rapidly decreased when the visual field extended over the test chart so that objects other than the test chart were included in the visual field. It decreased to almost zero when the filter was about 5 cm or less away from the eye. It was concluded that we do not necessarily have to use goggles to cover the entire visual field but can use a normal pair of glasses made of colored filters for young subjects to study the color perception of the elderly with understanding that the study is only for the color perception experienced while wearing the glasses.     

Color Constancy in a Photograph Perceived as a Three-Dimensional Space

It is known that color constancy does not hold in a photograph. This could be because the photograph is recognized as a two-dimensional paper. Based on the concept of the recognized visual space of illumination (RVSI), it is predicted that color constancy holds in the photograph if it is perceived as a 3-D scene. We examined whether the color constancy held under a special viewing condition. A photograph of a room under incandescent illumination was shown under daylight illumination. We tested the neutral color perception of a stimulus on the photograph both with and without a dimension-up viewing box showing the photograph alone monocularly. The results showed good color constancy when a subject observed the photograph with the viewing box. It was also shown that the degree of color constancy decreased for a jumbled photograph without 3-D information. Our results suggest that the recognition of a space and illumination are important in color perception.     

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.     

Walls Surrounding a Space Work More Efficiently Construct a Recognized Visual Space of Illumination than Do Scattered Objects

The apparent color of an object depends on how we recognize the space where it is placed in terms of illumination. We call this the recognized visual space of illumination (RVSI). What we see in the space first, namely, the initial visual information (IVI) determines properties of the RVSI, and we will show in this paper that the walls surrounding this space are the most important IVI for the construction of the RVSI. A normal room was illuminated by a ceiling light at 60 lx and its central area was also lit by a hidden illumination of 400 lx. Two halves of a miniature room with walls on three sides and a floor were inserted from left and right sides into the hidden illumination to gradually create one miniature room, and the apparent lightness of a test patch was judged as a function of the amount of the inserted portions to measure construction of RVSI for the hidden illumination. The apparent lightness was around 55 in L∗ when no IVI was in the hidden illumination, it gradually went down with more IVI to around 40 L∗ to return toward its nominal lightness of 24 L∗ in the case of test patch N2. The drop was large with the present condition of IVI where, in the end, the space of the hidden illumination was surrounded by walls, compared to the previous results where the space was filled only by objects; this indicated the importance and efficiency of walls for constructing RVSI.     

Room Illuminance rather than Immediate Surrounding Luminance Determines Natural to Unnatural Color of an Object Border

The color of an object placed in a room goes through various modes of color appearance if its luminance is increased independently from the room illumination; from the natural object color to an unnatural object color, and to the light source color having two borders. We were interested in investigating the determining factor for the first border as it is useful in lighting design. It has been thought without a specific theory that it is the surrounding luminance that determines the border. According to a new concept of the recognized visual space of illumination (RVSI), the border is solely determined by the room illumination, and not by the luminance of the immediate surroundings of the object. In the first experiment of the present paper the border of a test stimulus was determined for various room illuminance while keeping the luminance of the immediate surroundings constant. It was shown that the border luminance was roughly proportional to the room illuminance, confirming the prediction based on the RVSI theory. In the second experiment the border was determined for varying luminance of the immediate surroundings while maintaining constant room illuminance. The border did not change, again confirming the prediction based on this theory.     

Three Dimensionality of the Recognized Visual Space of Illumination Proved by Hidden Illumination

We hypothesized that the recognized visual space of illumination (RVSI) was constructed in our brain when we grasped the state of illumination of a space. The importance about the RVSI is that it is three dimensional and is valid not only at the surfaces of the existing objects in the space, but also for the entire portion in the space where no objects exist. With this property of RVSI we are able to predict the appearance of an object surface in terms of lightness as well as of color when the object shifts from one place to the other in the space. The three dimensionality of the RVSI is proved by giving a hidden illumination within a space and by asking a subject to judge the lightness or color of a test patch placed in the area of the hidden illumination. In spite of the additional light on the test patch the subject did not recognize that the light was added but simply felt that the surface was made of a higher lightness or colored by transferring the light into an increase of the reflectance factor of the test patch. The results can be interpreted if we assume that a same RVSI exists throughout the entire space including the area of the hidden illumination.     

Failure of color constancy for high luminance of a test patch that appears unnatural as an object in a space

The theory of the recognized visual space of illumination (RVSI) is that the color appearance of objects in a space is determined in relation to its recognition axis RX whose direction is determined by the brain action to adapt to the illumination in the space. Thus the color constancy holds. RX is applicable to objects in the space but not to an object or a portion that does not belong in the space in terms of illumination, that is to say, the luminance of which is too high based on the illumination for that space. In that case the color appearance would be determined in relation to the fundamental axis FX and the color constancy would not hold. In the present paper the chromaticity points were measured for a test patch that appeared achromatic for various luminance of the patch. The points were close to the color of illumination to indicate the color constancy when the luminance was low enough to assure its appearance as the object color, but they departed from the color of illumination and approached the colorimetrically achromatic color. The color constancy gradually failed for the test patch with the high luminance when the color mode became an unnatural object color and then a light color.     

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     

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.     

彩色视觉装置的颜色校正对比实验研究

鉴于利用彩色视觉装置进行在线测量是颜色测量在工业应用发展的趋势,而光源的光谱分布和相机响应函数与人眼的光谱响应曲线的不一致会严重影响测量的精确性,在人工D65光源和LED阵列光源照明下,利用相同的工业相机获取校正图片,采用多项式回归方法在与设备无关空间sRGB和CIEL*a*b*空间进行校正。实验结果显示在校正前平均色差分别为27.68E和16.09E,人工D65光源照明下获取的图片色差较小,校正后不同光源下获取图片的色度趋于一致,分别为2.56E和2.39E。采用sRGB颜色空间,在校正精度、校正步骤、图片显示等方面都要优于CIEL*a*b*空间。以一幅拍摄的实际图片校正为例,显示了色度校正对彩色装置的重要性。     

基于色差分析的中国淡彩绘画保护性照明光源

为得到博物馆照明光源对中国传统淡彩绘画的色彩影响规律,并确定不同类型中国传统淡彩绘画的最低损害光源,以3种博物馆典型照明光源作为实验光源,分组照射中国传统淡彩绘画模型试件,对模型试件的CIE LAB色度数据进行周期性测量。基于实验数据计算不同周期色差变化值,并绘制色差随曝光量的周期性衰变曲线。进而对色差值变化数据进行回归分析,拟合得到不同光源对4种淡彩绘画颜料的相对影响函数公式,提出不同光源对各类型淡彩绘画的相对影响系数。结果表明：3种照明光源对工笔淡彩绘画的影响系数为K_金卤灯：K_卤钨灯：K_WLED=1.00：0.92：0.84;对小青绿淡彩绘画的影响系数为K_金卤灯：K_卤钨灯：K_WLED=2.05：1.71：1.65;对水墨淡彩绘画的影响系数为K_金卤灯：K_卤钨灯：K_WLED=1.17：0.94：0.91。在淡彩绘画照明保护性照明光源选择时,应选择RYGB型WLED光源。     

Lightness Change as Perceived in Relation to the Size of Recognized Visual Space of Illumination

According to the concept of the recognized visual space of illumination (RVSI) the lightness of an object surface is perceived in relation to its conceptualized size. To prove this proposition the lightness of gray test patches was judged when they were located at various positions inside an illuminated space composed of two rooms in the depth direction from a subject. No retinal image arrangement was changed in the test patch and its immediate surroundings, but the front room had walls, floors and furniture lower in lightness by the amount of N1.5 than the back room to make the RVSI of the former smaller despite the illuminance in the entire space being the same. The results showed that the apparent lightness of the patches was perceived higher by amount of about 13 in L units for the N4 test patch and about 20 for N6 when the patches were located in the front room, in accordance with the prediction. It was stressed that the experiment of lightness judgment should be conducted in a three dimensional space rather than two dimensional plane as done by several investigators.     

真彩色体视全息图

用三色光栅照相机拍摄景物的两张视差照片,然后用单色激光器经二次曝光全息记录制成一张真彩色体视全息图,在普通白炽灯照明下可再现真彩色体视全息像.该方法制作过程更简单,减少了散斑噪音,消除了彩色全息像的色差,得到的全息像清晰明亮,色彩真实,立体感强.     

Color restoration in the black-and-white video camera

A method of restoring the color information in a black-and-white video camera is proposed in this paper. The method is demonstrated by an experiment. The experiment contains two steps. Firstly, an environmental coefficient matrix is calculated by taking pictures on a calibration plate. Then, a restored picture is estimated by Matlab. The experiments have been done in different settings and in another dual-mode camera. All restored pictures are compared with the original ones. The results indicate that this method has precision, repeatability and adaptability to environment. If the system can be put to practical use, it will give clues to the criminal investigation.     

Dynamics of Asymmetric Color Matching

It is known that the human color constancy is not complete. We conducted asymmetric color matching experiments to clarify a simple question: what was it that the observer matched. Observers made apparent-color matches between Munsell color chips under D₆₅ illumination and a color chip presented on a CRT. The observers’ matches showed incomplete color constancy. We applied relative cone-weight transformation to each observer’s results under control condition, so as to equate the unique-white point for each illuminant condition. The result of this simple transformation showed good match to the actual data. Our results suggest what the observer was doing during the asymmetric color matches was picking up apparent-color signal, achieved from the test color chip under D₆₅, and reconstructing it with respect to the unique-white by a simple cone response scaling.