AIC 2004, COLOR AND PAINTS
Interim Meeting of the International Color Association
Porto Alegre, Brazil, November 2-5, 2004
ABSTRACTS OF POSTERS
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Index
Araújo, Mônica
de Queiroz Fernandes - Imagination and color in the
carioca scene
Ávila,
María Mercedes, et al. - Colour and the design of urban image
Bavaresco, Nelson - A dedicated color system for the color
aspects education
Becerra, Paulina - Chromatic strategies: Decisions around artificial
coloration of natural materials at product’s design process
Bolanca,
Ivana, Z. Bolanca, and M. Milkovic -
The permanence of conventional and digital offset prints
Brozovic,
Maja, and Nina Knesaurek - Colorimetric
investigations as quality criteria of the work of art reproductions
Caramelo
Gomes, Cristina
- Built and human
environment: New paints?
Caramelo
Gomes, Cristina -
Reinventing indoor layouts: The contribution of light, colour and texture to a stimulus ambience
Cariola, Susana Beatriz - Color and cesia in the
history of stained-glass window
Charnay,
Yves, and Jacques Roire- Colour harmony, subjective
appreciation or ordered construction
Cordero,
Elisa - Colour
proposal for two educational buildings in Valdivia, Chile
Da
Costa, Gilberto, and Joel Cuello - The
new phytometric system of radiation units for plant production
Duangmal, K., B. Saicheua, and S. Sueeprasan - Roselle
anthocyanins as a natural food colorant
Estévez, Silvia María - Color and
design of pre-Columbian ceramics today
García Gil,
Fernanda, et al. - Light as a genetic element of the image
Gonçalves, B., and A.
Pereira - Color practice and theory: A virtual learning environment
González-Vida, Mari Reyes - Colour theory in infant
education. Practical experience
González-Vida, Mari Reyes - Projection of green
fluorescent light upon tulle and a female body. Practical experience
Gueleva-Tzvetkova, Ralitza - Color
and pattern in contemporary applied art: Time and space aspects
Huertas, Rafael, et al. - Investigation of
simulated texture effect on perceived color differences
Iwase, Masanori, et al. - Analysis of colour effect in Japan - South
Korea world cup football game
Kobayashi, Masashi, and I. Okamoto - Studies on the exterior color of store: Effect on the motive of entrance
to a clothing store
Kuo, Wen-Guey, et al. - A study on the feasibility of
estimating symptom in terms of facial skin colour
Kuo, Wen-Guey, et
al. - The effect of various deviate visual functions
with 1º angular subtense on the colour fidelity of displays
Lin, Shang-Ming, et al. - The synthesis and dyeability of carboxylic
anthraquinone dyes for polyester (PTT)/wool blend
fabrics
López, Mabel A. - How “to paint” with words: Talking about
color in learning situations in graphic design
Maki, Kiwamu - Color simulation method using image
processing software
Mattiello, María L. F. de, and Hugo Salinas - Metamerism
in the visual system
Mazuecos, Belén - New materials for contemporary art:
Experiments with hair dyes on supports of different nature
Medina, José M., et al. - Binocular stochastic
models for suprathreshold chromatic changes at isoluminance
Milkovic, Marin, et al. - Gamut characteristics
of chromatic and identical desaturated achromatic reproductions
Mima, Tomoko, and Masako Sato - Studies on ultraviolet rays
blocking by dyed fabrics
Moreira Da Silva, Fernando - Colour management in urban
spaces: The historical areas
Morimoto, Kazunari, et al. - Design
of full color lighting using led and japanese paper made from silk fiber
Nakamura, Taeko, et al. - Emotion induced from colour and its language
expression
Olsson, Gertrud - Colour perspectives On colour and paint
Pappier, Andrea - Color in the city: An aesthetic and
semiotic study of “Chinatown” in Buenos Aires
Parac-Osterman, D., A. Hunjet, and J. Burusic -
Psychophysical study of colour
Parac-Osterman, D., A. Grancaric, and A. Sutlovic -
Influence of chemical structure of dyes on discolouration effects
Pescio, Silvia, and María L. F. de Mattiello - Readability
of chromatic documents
Pridmore, Ralph W., and Manuel Melgosa - Effect of luminance on color
discrimination ellipses: Analysis and prediction of data
Pujol, Jaume, et al. - Performance analysis of different optoelectronic imaging sensors for
applications in color measurements
Ribas, V., et
al. - Emotion with a focus
on the macroelement color during the process of conception of new products in
design
Rizzo, Silvia - Making color: Pictorial art training for
environmental color design
Romano, Ana María, and Cecilia Mazzeo - The teaching of
colour in the massive university
Romero, Javier, et al. - Looking for an invariant
under daylight changes with L, M, S-type sensors
Ronchi, Lucia, and Niccolò Rositani - Linking painting to visual
science: Creativity versus quantification in the lab
Salardi, Roberto, and Rita Rao - Cultural and scientific
association of colour
Sánchez-Marañón, Manuel, et al. - Four soil color charts
compared in CIELAB color space
Serov, Nikolay - Ontology of color
Sluban, B., and O. äauperl - Target-position dependence of
the effect of the proportional: Concentration errors for dyeing
Sudsilowsky, Sérgio - The materiality of ideas
Varela, Diana - Colour in textile design: Importance and
intervention in the habitat and the inhabiting
Vilaseca, Meritxell, et al. - Color visualization system
for the discrimination of indistinguishable samples in the visible spectrum
Yaguchi, Hirohisa, N. Watanabe, and S. Shioiri - Effects of S-cone excitation on
color discrimination threshold
Zoido, Jesús, and Fernando Carreño - Wavelength discrimination thresholds
and psychophysical monochromaticity
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IMAGINATION AND COLOR IN THE
CARIOCA SCENE
Mônica de Queiroz Fernandes ARAÚJO
SENAI/CETIQT, Rio de Janeiro 22630-010, Brazil
This article is a result of the
experiences made during the classes of Fundamentals of Colour, which I teach
for the Fashion Design Bachelor Degree Course offered by the Faculty
SENAI/CETIQT.
We use the imaginative conception,
based on Gaston Bachelard’s principle of creative imagination for the
conception of objects and places, as a methodology for teaching colour to
future designers. This didactic choice for the creative imagination was a
result of a previous research done with the purpose of revealing the images
built in the soul of the self when admiring an object or place.1 In
this way the student self engross and wish to be in a place or to have an
object, feeling he as a part of it (as if he has created it).
The project-focused education of the
designer, when using his imagination, transforms an intention of a project,
since the project comes out as a result of the designer imaginative thinking
that leads to the creation of an object already with personality and identity,
in which the colour is part of its structure (colour-structure). From this
principle we have elaborated an exercise for the creation of the colour
palette, taking it from the observation of the urban scene of Rio de Janeiro.
The theme emerged in the classroom during a ludic approach for a photographic
essay, which could put together different aspects of the carioca way of life: a
“Bohemian Rio” that embraces the “Cultural Rio”, the “Tourist Rio” that
welcomes the “Nature Rio”, and the “Historic Rio” present in the day-to-day of
the city. The group of students, when separated in sub-groups to choose their
own theme, did it with a natural and spontaneous identification that created
multiple effects by mixing photography and gouache and by submitting themselves
to the psychic action of this walking-urban making.
The
well-organised contact with the colours of the city through the methodology of
the creative imagination changed the understanding of colour and its
application both in the objects and in the environment of each of the students.
Colour at the imagination overcomes its psychophysics state and turns to be the
structure of the city, as an innovative result to the quality of colour. As a
didactic-pedagogic result, the sedimentation of the knowledge acquired
throughout the theoretic classes surpassed the simple memorizing of the rules
of composition and harmony, turning the colour into a structure of thinking,
making it a natural part of the object representation within the project-making
process. The project-making process, by being originated from an imaginational
germination, liberates the colour application from the critical analysis within
its creation source.
1. Thesis with the title The hidden dimension of the habitat: A poetic architecture presented by the author, under the orientation of Dr.Sc. Carlos Murad, for the Architecture Master Degree at PROARQ/UFRJ in February 2003.
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COLOUR AND THE DESIGN OF URBAN IMAGE
María Mercedes ÁVILA,* Marta POLO,† Adriana INCATASCIATO,† María Inés GIRELLI,† María Marta MARICONDE,† Darío SUÁREZ,† and Guillermo OLGUÍN*
* Institute of Colour, National University of
Córdoba, Argentina
† Faculty of Architecture, Urbanism and Design,
National University of Córdoba, Argentina
Colour is a tool of expression and communication that requires, on the part of designers, an updated knowledge of its scope of action. It is necessary, therefore, to understand the problems involved in the city at the end of the century, which will enable us to fully exploit its communicative and expressive potential.
The research on the
action of colour and its use as a tool of design of the urban landscape leads
to the fact, today more than ever, that we have to admit that the science of
colour is a science of information with a psychological and technical focus
which has gained ground and has given back to colour a referential function in
the contemporary city.
Taking into account
that daylight is the most important element that reveals colour appearance,
this communication will emphasize the relationship between the changes of the
colour of daylight, the perceived colour of facades and the impact over the
used paints. It will develop some provisional conclusions of the last
researches of this equipment.
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A DEDICATED COLOR SYSTEM FOR THE
COLOR ASPECTS EDUCATION
Nelson BAVARESCO
Gerart Design e Recursos Visuais Ltda. / Cecor® Color
System, São Paulo, Brazil
Cecor® Color System (SCC) is characterized for being directed towards education focusing the rather subjective questions regarding color. Inspired by other systems such as Ostwald, Munsell and Gerritsen’s, Cecor was entirely computer developed within CMYK standard. Consolidated with its third version, Cecor can be specified in any notation system, for instance RGB, HSB, LAB, etc., when there is the need for standard colors. Cecor’s flexibility allows adaptations to new demands as well as the edition of all its material in digital system. One of Cecor’s most important aspects is its three integrated modules, as follows:
1) Regular solid: as in the system tree, which describes the color characteristics in terms of Hue, Lightness and Saturation (HLS), allowing the digital edition of a multiple purpose color catalog with 2,421 samples. As Cecor is an open system, it can be enlarged to a greater number of colors.
2) Didactic module: gives scientific and artistic support to the system, with 20 synthetic charts on theory and psychodynamic interactions in color edited in various kinds of supports and sizes devoted to the study and teaching of the art and science of color.
3) Harmony chart module: formed by 22 basic harmonies that create more than 100,000 CMPs (Color Matching Plans). The charts are produced by customer order and work as coordinated color guidelines for any aesthetic or decorative purpose. This module derives from a basic product for the popularization of color culture: the “making harmonies and color mixing” disc that is being sold cheaply at hardware and stationary stores.
In practice, the system’s chromatic basis can fully serve countless areas of final products, such as packaging, fabrics, coating and furniture, appliances, machines, vehicles and industrial equipment, paint and decorative accessories, etc. Cecor also includes an application of a refined chromatic methodology analyses for existing situations and prone to color renovation.
The benefits that Cecor is able to provide are also quite comprehensive. From the chromatic planning for auxiliary projects in architecture and decoration directed to work, study or social ambiences to the development of courses, workshops and specific training for professionals, professors and color marketing executives.
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CHROMATIC STRATEGIES: DECISIONS
AROUND ARTIFICIAL COLORATION OF NATURAL MATERIALS AT PRODUCT’S DESIGN PROCESS
Paulina BECERRA
Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
The design process is based on a central strategy, that leads the professional in all his decisions related to the project’s problems, in every aspect: morphology, production, communication, function, etc. This strategy organizes these variables for the product to be the answer of certain aim, fulfilling the user’s particular requirements.
When natural materials are chosen to work on, it must
be taken under consideration that they have specific physical properties,
closely related with the origin and the different transformation processes
performed on them, that set all the morphological characteristics: form,
texture, color, and cesia. Therefore, when it is necessary to define the
chromatic features the dilemma will fluctuate between keeping the natural
colors of materials or changing them.
It must be kept in mind that any kind of cover will
change, even slightly, the aspect of the material, whether by the way it
reflects, transmits or absorbs light, or by the variations that this effect or
the pigmentation causes on colors. In any case, these decisions should be taken
by following the rules of central strategy, but considering the available
coloring possibilities (natural or artificial) from technology, communication
and functionality.
This work explores the possible modifications of
natural-material’s color and cesia through the application of artificial
covers, for protective, aesthetical or functional purposes, organizing the
variables of both spatial and spectral light distribution, in such a way that
function as a reference tool in time for making decisions around color use in
the product’s design process.
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THE PERMANENCE OF
CONVENTIONAL AND DIGITAL OFFSET PRINTS
Ivana BOLANCA,* Zdenka BOLANCA,* and Marin MILKOVIC†
† GZH, Croatia
The permanence of prints depends on its components and on the influence of the external factors. The deterioration of prints on ageing contributes to the technological conditions of paper manufacture (characteristic of the used raw materials, condition of pulp preparation, method of beating, sizing procedure, type of sizing agent), the techniques of printing and kind of printing inks, effects of lighting, temperature and atmospheric humidity, and the impact of microorganisms and moulds. In prints degradation the following processes are included: oxidative degradation, alkaline hydrolysis, thermolysis, physical-mechanical damage and reactions to mould.
In this work the
test form is designed from the standard patterns composed of 210 fields of
different combinations of colour value of the subtractive analysis, generated
by vector graphics in the steps of 5%. The same printing form was used for
printing in the techniques of conventional and digital offset printing. While
printing in the conventional offset the model inks with different ratio of renewable
raw materials were used. Uncoated paper of 100 g/m2 grammage was
used in printing. The prints were submitted to natural and accelerated ageing.
In the application of ColorOpen the conversion from CIE XYZ into CIE L*a*b* was
done in order to present the gamut of prints in the three-dimensional unified
colour space.
The differences among particular gamuts of the printed samples in relation to the printing techniques, composition of the conventional offset ink and ElectroInk are presented in the work. The influence of the natural and accelerated ageing of prints on their optical stability is discussed.
The work is in scientific sense the contribution to the explanation primarily of the influence of the printing technique and colour composition on the optical stability of prints.
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COLORIMETRIC INVESTIGATIONS AS
QUALITY CRITERIA OF THE WORK OF ART REPRODUCTIONS
Maja BROZOVIC and Nina KNESAUREK
Faculty of Graphic Arts, University of Zagreb, Croatia
The quality of the work of arts reproduction has been observed from the point of view of aesthetic and technological criteria. Technological criteria are composed of processes, systems and materials that are used in the reproduction process. Aesthetic criteria include formal and methodological characteristics on which the visually presentable systems are based. The visually presentable systems represent art and technical achievements of the historical periods of the visual arts.
There is the intention in this work to study the reproduction of the works of art of particular visually presentable systems by taking into consideration the aesthetic (arts) and technical (technological) characteristics. The investigations comprise the tonal visually presentable system (Renaissance), the bright-shadow one (Baroque) and the coloristic visually presentable system (Impressionism).
The methods comprise the visual evaluation and instrumental measurements by which subjective and objective evaluation of the reproductions have to be obtained. There is the intention to determine the quality criteria of the reproduction of particular visual image systems by colorimetric investigations of the color characteristics. In the visual evaluation of the observers, persons with defined knowledge and experience in the art practice have been included. By such a choice of the observers it is possible to consider the aesthetic criteria as authentic ones.
The quality criteria of the reproductions for each visually presentable system separately are made by the discussion of the investigation results. By defining the criteria, one wants to contribute to the improvement of the reproduction of the works of art in graphic media. This can lead to better understanding of the achievements of particular periods of visual arts, which represent the basis for the analysis of the visual form on which the graphic design is established.
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BUILT AND HUMAN ENVIRONMENT: NEW PAINTS?
Cristina
CARAMELO GOMES
Faculdade de Arquitectura, Universidade Lusíada, Linda-a-Velha, Portugal
Colour influences any life form: reproduction, survival, food, shelter, it all may depend of colour. That makes it a codified symbol in any communication process. Chromatic symbols are, throughout history and nature, an unquestionable way of communication for individual or collective identification.
Architecture, often designated as the royal art, frequently forgets and neglects the power of colour to influence reactions and behaviours; it uses an aesthetical motivated colour code, framed between materials and constructive processes and techniques, where volumes, planes and surfaces are showrooms for a particular artistic movement or fashion of the hour. This influences the built and human environment, by the use of colour as an element of the communicative process illustrating political and social ideologies and realities. Colour is a statement. Radical examples can be found within the modern movement, where the demanded sobriety and the emergence of the social classes’ ideology and conscience were coloured with achromatic environments; or in the post-modern movement, where despite the aim of recovering the cultural and historical background of the place towards the recovery of the spirit and identity of the place, colour and ornament are frequently translated elements of the cartoon world to the built environment. This radical attitude illustrated by the imagination of each artist was once again unaware of the place and user’s identification and requirements. None of these attitudes has considered the physiological, psychological and cultural impact in human behaviour, and yet some voices arise with a holistic comprehension and background, criticizing very often the clinical or focused analyses and interpretation of the people related with psychological effects.
Marketing and publicity use psychological studies, such as the ones on colour or the Maslow pyramid, taking the maximum profit from this dialectics to achieve their aims and objectives. Built and human environment has its own ephemerally provided by the experiences and the life cycle of each building.
Empirical studies show that colour changes with the location and orientation of the building, is influenced by climatic features of the place, can integrate the building with the surrounding environment, as Frank Lloyd Wright demonstrated, can be the product of the cultural choices of one population or place, can influence the user will of permanence and can create a path way, can influence our perception of time, temperature, affect our way of thinking and determine our reactions. Colour is influenced by light, and the light is a moment of vivacity or seriousness, emerging and hiding areas, objects, creating real or fantastic environments.
The anonymous architecture that is spreading all over the places, neglects the identity of the place and the user. It may be the characterisation of the moment, but the life cycle of the buildings is determined by factors that go beyond its aesthetical integration or physical condition.
The construction industry is one of the most prominent economic sectors of Portuguese economy. Presently, to be an architect is a fashion or a dream that leads hundreds of students to architectural degrees. Colour and light’s impact is not subject of teaching and are hardly researched. Academics pay little attention to it, university curricula neglects them and practitioners do not think about it.
Historical areas within cities deserve some attention from public institutions and academic works, towards the rehabilitation of the spirit and identity of the place. Yet, these questions also apply to peripheral contemporaneous areas, the big majority budget residential areas, where colour seems to serve only the purpose of warning the traveller about the neighbourhood he/she is entering. Beware!!!
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REINVENTING INDOOR LAYOUTS: THE CONTRIBUTION OF LIGHT, COLOUR AND TEXTURE TO A STIMULUS AMBIENCE
Cristina CARAMELO GOMES
Faculdade de Arquitectura, Universidade Lusíada, Linda-a-Velha, Portugal
The way the human being inhabits is directly related with its way of survival. The grotto, first form of human shelter, was characterised by the moisture, texture, and light provided by the opening enter and geographical orientation. The rapid permanence of the man within this space was not impeditive to human intervention. An example, Lascaux caves, 17,000 year-old painting on a stone wall, was the primary aesthetical attitude within the human shelter, one of humanity’s earliest narrative compositions considered by many experts. The man set out to identify, characterize and enjoy its territory.
The sedentary society, characterised by agriculture, raise a new way of living with a special emphasis on the sedentary way of life and the geographical and physical relation between the place of dwelling and the place of working.
Construction process and materials applied were the ones possible to find within the immediacy. Texture and colour were consequence of materials and mineral pigments available. Light was the result of voids in walls, and geographical and atmospheric conditions were determinants.
The exodus from the country site to the metropolitan areas that characterised the 20th century, raise a new way of living and work. Although the sedentary condition of the individual remains, dwelling stands apart from the working site.
Anthropometrical along with ergonomic features introduce their importance in the relation of human to machine. Psychological and behavioural studies boost their significance; nevertheless, both physiologic and psychological issues were surpassed by the economic pressure, and the stubborn of the ignorance.
In the negative sense of the expression, the building is a machine to live in. Man was never considered as an individual with expectancies or personality. The constructive features of the building can be crucial towards its own security and health, as the description of the finishing can be crucial towards the stimulus behaviour.
At the moment, the individual, specially the European one, is the main purpose of the information society. This peculiar society, where information is the raw material as well as the objective production, aims at the inclusion of every human being towards the equity between individuals and geographical regions. To accomplish these principles, ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) lift up its importance. ICT provide the communication between individuals and between regions, establishing new ways of working and living.
The use and abuse of ICT within our daily activities implies an increase of indoors permanence. ICT can misunderstand the space but mainly the time; biological functions and mood can be altered by the new time schedules provided and this insistent permanence indoor.
This insistent permanence indoor, the anxiety provided by the excess of information to manage, machines to operate with, unrealistic tasks and time tables, hot-desking and virtual teams, lack of identification between individuals plus individual and place, should be a magnet for the attention of professionals to the importance of the ambience stimulus conception.
Anthropometrics is concerned within every workplace project; ergonomic considerations are present within comfort considerations (illumination, acoustic or temperature forms), therefore, psychological reflections towards the minimization of stress and extreme behaviours must be considered too.
More than ever the layout of every indoor, workplace, dwelling or leisure nature, must consider human requirements regarded to status, privacy, territory and social interaction between individuals, which means to consider light, colour and texture further more than a decoration issue, an aesthetical attitude headed for show of.
Concepts of kinaesthesia, proxemics and psychology must be integrant part of the focused information, accessible and disseminated enough, to conscience every professional to recognize the importance of an informed and wisdom conception of indoor spaces.
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COLOR AND CESIA IN THE HISTORY OF STAINED-GLASS
WINDOW
Susana Beatriz CARIOLA
Faculty of Architecture,
Design and Urbanism, National University of Litoral, Santa Fe, Argentina
The word “cesia” has been coined to refer to the
visual sensations aroused by different spatial distributions of light:
sensations of transparency, translucency, matte opacity, specularity, gloss,
darkness, etc.
(J. Caivano, Die
Farbe 42 (1/3), 1996)
The stained-glass window puts in evidence the very own cesia, the translucent, essential characteristic that bases its essence, highlighting that the function of the colored glasses resides mainly in the possibility of being perceived by the transparency effect that is caused by the intensity of light that passes through it.
This effect can be observed from the interior of an atmosphere, depending on the intensity of the existent external light (for example, the natural light coming from the sun), and it can also be admired from the exterior, with atmospheres illuminated in the interior (with artificial light).
The stained-glass window can only be perceived and admired by the transparency effect, thanks to the light that crosses it. We will be able to look and admire its dynamics and changing appearance, where the beauty of its color will change at each instant depending on the degree of cesia existent in each of the glasses.
The technique of stained-glass window is one more in the excellent and original manifestations of the history of art. The intention in this report is exactly to put in relief the varied meanings attributed to its functional character. This art is analyzed with the purpose of understanding the transformations suffered in color and cesia, in connection with its aesthetic, iconographic and historical value.
The analysis will embrace the appearance and the aesthetics of the stained-glass window, as well as the application of color and cesia, observing the similarities and differences perceived according to the technical limits, needs and specific function. The stained-glass window is manifested in greater or smaller degree, and with different characteristics, according to the times. I will also try to establish an analogy between two periods of the art of stained-glass window in the history of architecture:
1) The Gothic windows of the 13th century.
2) The stained-glass windows in the modern architecture of the 20th century, according to the optics of Frank Lloyd Wright.
We will go through the Art Noveau, as a period of intermission, in order to establish the existent synchronism between the times and the pertinent styles.
Bibliography
Lawrence Lee,
George Seddon, and Francis Stephens, Stained glass (London, 1982).
Thomas A. Heinz, Frank Lloyd Wright, with photographs by Sonia Halliday and Laura
Lushington (Barcelona: Gustavo
Gili, 1982).
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COLOUR HARMONY,
SUBJECTIVE APPRECIATION OR ORDERED CONSTRUCTION
Yves
CHARNAY* and Jacques ROIRE†
* Ecole
Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France
† EREC,
Paris, France
If it is
possible to characterize a colour according to the three measuring parameters,
which are hue, saturation and brightness, it is much less obvious to
characterize a colour harmony. Still we consider as quantifiable the relation
between the colours that form a harmonious whole.
In order to characterize a colour harmony, we
will use this clear and concise definition: “the existing relations between the different parts of a whole thanks
to which these very parts work towards the same overall effect”.
Desaturation triangles, which are the basis of many colour atlases, correspond to
this definition. The space that separates visually each element can be measured
and the progressions can be calculated. Therefore the values that define the
space between these colour elements can be quantified. Many chromatic
constructions, in adequacy with the criteria that define them as harmonious,
are quantifiable.
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COLOUR PROPOSAL FOR
TWO EDUCATIONAL BUILDINGS IN VALDIVIA, CHILE
Elisa CORDERO
Architecture and Urbanism Institute, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile
The colouring decisions that architects make in their work have different meanings in their origin, depending on their own architectural vision and on the variables of the projects. In this paper I will present two educational buildings, property of the Universidad Austral de Chile, designed by an architecture firm with the advise of a designer and a bioclimatic engineer.
One building is covered with
pre-painted panels selected from the Luxalon colour card. The other one, built
in fibrocement and concrete, adjust its colouring to a paint manufacturer’s
colour card. The external surfaces of both buildings work as a bioclimatic
element due to their insulation design and to different local colour studies.
These buildings distinguish
themselves from the local architecture due to their daring colour design, which
is applied also in contemporary architecture.
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THE NEW PHYTOMETRIC SYSTEM OF RADIATION UNITS FOR PLANT PRODUCTION
Gilberto
J. C. DA COSTA* and Joel L. CUELLO†
* Electrical Department, Pontifícia Universidade Católica of RS, Brazil
† Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA
The
normalized quantum efficiency curve (RQE), published by Mcree in 1972,
replicated by Inada in 1976 and 1978, and refined by Sager et al. in 1982 and
1988, was adopted here as the basis for developing the phytometric system of
radiation units applied to the production of plants. The phytometric system is
designed as a method to facilitate the calculations of radiation measurements
for plant systems, taking into account the response to photosynthesis.
Based on the multiplication of the RQE curve with the spectral power distribution (SPD) of a given light source, the phytometric measurement would yield units of phytoW-m-². The flux radiation unit phytoWatt easily provided conversion factors to the radiation metric, photometric, and photon flux (quantum) systems within the photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) of 400 to 700 nm or within the extended PAR of 300 to 800 nm. The use of the phytometric system was demonstrated by applying it to four types of high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps. Pertinent conversion factors were calculated for each lamp type.
This paper develops a unit of measure for
plant lighting, the phytoWatt, which is simpler and more interchangeable than
the unit of uoml-m-², designated for PPF or YPF. The phytoWatt is derived from
the radiometric measurement weighted and according to the RQE curve.
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ROSELLE ANTHOCYANINS AS A NATURAL FOOD COLORANT AND IMPROVEMENT OF ITS COLOUR STABILITY
Kiattisak DUANGMAL,* Busararat SAICHEUA,* and Suchitra SUEEPRASAN†
* Department of Food Technology, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
† Department of Imaging and Printing Technology, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
Colour is an important factor influencing consumers’ acceptability of food products. This is due to the fact that consumers always associate food colour with other qualities such as freshness, ripeness, and food safety. Thus, many food products have added food colorants to make the products more desirable. At present, the role of anthocyanins as food colorant is becoming increasingly important. Not only do they contribute to the most important attributes of food —both for aesthetic value and for quality judgement— but also they tend to yield potential positive health effects, as they have been observed to possess potent antioxidant properties. Since roselle (Hibiscus sabddariffa L.) is widely grown in Thailand and tropical areas, it could be another potential source of anthocyanins as a natural food colorant. However, natural food colorants are not stable in food products. They can be decolourised and degraded during storage. This study aimed to improve colour stability of anthocyanin extracts from roselle by adding either maltodextrin or trehalose as a stabiliser. Colour stability, colour appearance and observers’ colour preference of the roselle anthocyanins over a storage period of 12 weeks were quantified and compared to SAN RED RC® and synthetic carmoesin, which are commonly used as food colorants in commercial.
In this study, the extract solution of anthocyanins from roselle at a pH of 2.5, 13.5o Brix was subjected to freeze-drying under 0.05 hPa vacuum for 15 hours. After freeze-drying, the dried product was ground into powder. The sample was packed into a sachet made of metalised film. Maltodextrin and trehalose, each at 2 and 3% (w/v), were used as stabilisers in freeze-dried powder. During a 15-week storage period at 30oC, anthocyanin contents, half-life, and colour were evaluated. Addition of maltodextrin and trehalose retarded anthocyanin degradation. Although pigment concentration changed, the change in hue was negligible. The result showed that the extract anthocyanins with 3% (w/v) maltodextrin added provided reasonable colour stability. This extract anthocyanin colour (0.1% w/v) was then used in a model system of drinks to investigate colour stability, colour appearance and preference in comparison with SAN RED RC® (0.05% w/v) and synthetic carmoesin colour (0.05% w/v). The extract anthocyanin colour had higher lightness than the other two synthetic colorants but its chroma was much lower. The results indicated that the synthetic colorants were more stable in all colour aspects, i.e. lightness (L*), chroma (C*ab) and hue (hab). In the case of sensory evaluation, it was found that overall preference of a drink with extract anthocyanins added was not acceptable after 8 weeks of storage, while the drinks with added either SAN RED RC® or synthetic carmoesin were acceptable through the period of 12-week storage.
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COLOR
AND DESIGN OF PRE-COLUMBIAN CERAMICS TODAY
Silvia María ESTÉVEZ
Universidad Nacional del Centro, Tandil, Prov. de
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Cerámicas Acuarela, Quatro Stelle, Tandil, Prov. de
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Pre-Columbian designs can be used today in very
important collections all over the world. I made a recompilation of signs and
symbols used long time ago, that we can use today in interior designs. We can
repeat all that symbols, taking care of them, looking for real sources of
information. Indians made them with a religious signification, thinking about
rain and sun, or to have more animals.
I can show examples of real pre-Columbian designs,
made now by ceramics companies; they are not handmade but are similar to
handmade examples. They used colors made from new pigments, which gave the
appearance of original natural colors and surface textures. Forms and colors
can be respected if we know the real sources of information.
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LIGHT AS A GENETIC ELEMENT OF THE IMAGE
Fernanda GARCÍA GIL, Ana GARCÍA LÓPEZ, Gertrudis ROMÁN, Sara TEVA ALMENDROS, and Teresa VIDA
Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Granada, Spain
Since a long time, the Research Group HUM-480 “Constitución e Interpretación de la Imagen Artística” has been working in the area of research about the perception of the work of art, paying attention to what is called genetic elements of the artistic image: light, matter, space and time, where color is a very important element inside the artistic languages.
At the beginning of March 2004, a theoretical-practical seminar was carried out with the professor of stage design from the National Institute of Art and light-worker in the Colon Theatre of Buenos Aires, Mauricio Rinaldi, who is also a member of the Argentine Color Group. The title of the seminar was “Illumination in Art and Stage Design” (“La Iluminación en el Arte y en la Escenografía”). In this seminar, the light work was treated from the more technical point of view: electric system, power phase and distribution, external-internal knowledge about different spotlights and mixing-light desks, etc. From the point of view of the significance, the focus was not just on how to use the light but also on why to use it. The aesthetics of light and the theory of communication have been analyzed, considering the illumination as a communication element inside the object of art, like stage design or plastic art.
The experience of working with 49 students was very interesting. They made very complex narrative works of art, in which light is an essential part of the communicative exercise. The above-specified members of the research group have developed a communication about this experience. The importance of this research is to integrate the Light and Materials Laboratory1 into the Faculty of Fine Arts of Granada University teaching practice.
1. The Light and Materials Laboratory is a creative
and technical research project with the purpose of integration in the new
syllabus of the Faculty of Fine Arts studies.
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COLOR PRACTICE AND
THEORY: A VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT BASED ON THE CHROMATIC PROBLEMS SOLVING
FOR THE ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN FIELDS
Virtual learning has
been based specially on written language. Fields such as architecture and
design, which are based on the development of visual-graphic language, have not
yet created models of learning environments adapted to its specific demands. On
this way, the VLE-AD project of the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
presents, as a main issue, a specific structure aiming at the creation of
virtual learning environments for architecture and design.
The VLE-AD is based on the tripod of communication and information technology (CIT), problem based learning (PBL) and theoretical contents of color. Collaborative learning depends on the CITs and put in evidence the socio-interacionism character of the learning environment. PBL does not constitute a theory itself, but is an educational approach, based on the presentation of open and suggestive real situations, which demands an active attitude and an effort to find its own answers, its own knowledge.
The collection of contents is
structured in a flexible and interactive way and can be accessed according to
the learners interests, not depending on time and place. The theoretical base
is then grouped in five big axes: concept definition, classification, chromatic
models, composition, and color reproduction. In the first axis, color concept is defined based on
its implications according to physics, physiology of perception and culture.
The item chromatic models
deals with the characteristics and uses of the systems RGB, CMYK, HSB, HSV,
CIE-LAB, Munsell, and NCS. In the
item composition, the
principles of chromatic
combinations, harmony strategies and contrast are explored. The item color reproduction approaches the
reproduction systems, its particularities and applications. This item also
deals with the apparent modifications that color experiences according to the
formal context, environment and illumination. Each item also offers exercises,
literature indications, study suggestions and tips that intend to amplify the
basic knowledge about the topic. A specific color glossary is available along
the whole learning environment. The learners also have access to an image bank,
learning material, videos, animations, presentations, gallery of works
developed by the groups, allowing the consultation at any time. They also can
save their files, notes and projects in specific “places” on the server.
Based on the finalization of the
contents implementation, problems and testing of the prototype, it is expected
to create parameters for the construction of learning environments focused on
knowledge fields based on chromatic language.
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COLOUR THEORY IN INFANT EDUCATION. PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE
Mari Reyes GONZÁLEZ-VIDA
Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Granada, Spain
Once upon a time there were three very elegant noblemen. One of them
was named the Red Knight. Do you know why? Because he was entirely red! His clothes,
his face, his shoes… everything about him was red. He was the most dangerous
because he was always very, very excitable. But do you know what else happened
to the Red Knight? He fell in love even with the flies that passed him by!
Imagine a class full of children
aged 4-5 years old, looking at you expectantly. How can you introduce them to
colour theory? How can you put them in touch with the physiological and
expressive qualities of colours? How can you make them understand and take
these ideas on board, as if they were their own?
We could propose that they “fill in” the spaces in the chromatic circles and learn a list of the physical and expressive qualities that each colour possesses… Do you think that would be useful? Moreover, do you think that these procedures would really do any good for our primary, secondary or higher education students? This activity is not about repeating lists by memory, our objective must be much wider: to achieve that the students “experience” colour and understand it from the significant experience that this has offered them.
The following study shows part of a didactic unit carried out in 2003 with boys and girls of 4-5 years of age from the Alquería School in Granada (Spain), in which, making use of games and designing clothes, the children learnt about colour theory and related it to their surroundings and to their own life.
In the first part of the study we explain the objectives and contents that are proposed for the session entitled “We’re Clothes Designers!” in which colour theory is worked on. Immediately afterwards we focus on the activity “The Noblemen’s Shirts”, a story that is used to aid a first approach to the physiological and expressive qualities of colour. Finally we explain the practical part in which the children have direct contact with colours, mixing paints and printing on the cardboard costumes that they have previously made.
This study vindicates the need to enable children to approach colour analysis from a very young age. Since this contact, as in all early experiences, this approach will shape the rest of their life experiences.
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PROJECTION OF GREEN FLUORESCENT LIGHT UPON TULLE AND A FEMALE BODY. PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE
Mari Reyes GONZÁLEZ-VIDA
Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Granada, Spain
The following work shows the results of research carried out in the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Granada, Spain, in the year 2000, within the subject of Pictorial Techniques corresponding to the final year of the university degree. The main objective that motivated this study was to empirically and theoretically investigate the idea that it was not only possible to paint “for sight”, but it is also possible to paint for “hearing” and for “touch”.
This hypothesis, follows on from the conceptual analysis of various pieces by Tadeusz Kantor which were worked on in class by the students —La Clase Muerta (The Dead Class) (1975) and Wielopole (1980), amongst others—, departing from the solution to the premise that lights, sounds and textures can be mixed by using technical processes similar to those employed in the physical mixing of colours to produce a painting.
The experience that is displayed focused on the analysis of light as a pictorial medium which enhances the tactile appreciation of the created object. The resources used to achieve this experience were a tube of green fluorescent light, tulle material from which a dress was made, some white walls and a female body upon a pedestal, who would put on the dress. Lights, textures, opaque and translucent elements were mixed, just as in a painting, to create an installation in which the visual and sensorial experience enjoyed similar importance.
The first part of this work expounds the theoretical ideas that guided the practical development of this installation. Immediately afterwards, the construction process of the piece is shown. This concludes with an image of the final state of the work, alongside which are exhibited some reflections on the piece, by way of a conclusion about the analysed experience.
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COLOR AND PATTERN IN
CONTEMPORARY APPLIED ART: TIME AND SPACE ASPECTS
Ralitza GUELEVA-TZVETKOVA
Union of artists, Bulgaria, and Color Group of Bulgaria
This paper presents a research of interactions between the color and the
pattern in form construction and composition process in contemporary applied
art. Analysis making base is the visual. It separates applied arts works time
and space conditions.
The purpose of the research is to build a theoretic formulation about color and pattern nature in contemporary applied art. Color not as technology and material, but as conscious use of artistic possibilities of so-called colors dynamic and static; and the pattern, as considerable motor of image building process and composition unity.
The analysis of different color/pattern combinations from form construction and work’s idea realization point of view leads to contemporary creative work peculiarities working out. The light and the space are an important factor in this time process. They define the importance of color and pattern. Thus the research is directed to art psychology axioms and perception mechanisms.
Observations’ conclusions are generalized using examples of contemporary Bulgarian applied art. Color/pattern theoretic possibilities in aesthetic effect on individual, society and inhabitable environment are presented practically through architectural space organization.
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INVESTIGATION OF SIMULATED TEXTURE
EFFECT ON
PERCEIVED COLOR DIFFERENCES
Rafael HUERTAS, María José RIVAS, Ana YEBRA, María del Mar PÉREZ, Manuel MELGOSA, and Enrique HITA
Department of Optics, University of Granada, Spain
Sample surface structure (texture) is an important parametric effect, of high industrial relevance. Currently the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) recommends the study of texture on color-difference evaluation (Color Res. Appl. 20, 1995, 399-403). For textile samples the CIE has recommended the use of KL = 2, KC = 1, KH = 1 in most recent color-difference formulas (CIE94 and CIEDE2000). Although this recommendation has been associated to texture, its origin is not well understood and additional research has been claimed.
We have obtained visual data on the effect of simulated textures on suprathreshold tolerances using CRT sample pairs. We have analyzed separately the lightness, chroma and hue tolerances for the 5 CIE centers recommended in 1978, considering both homogeneous and textured samples. Our texture is made up of random distributed dots, with different sizes, percentages of covered surface, and color attributes. These variables have been systematically modified obtaining 33 different textures for each CIE centre. A panel of 5 observers with normal color vision assessed each pair against a fixed achromatic anchor-pair with a color difference of 1.6 CIELAB units. In overall 7,706 suprathreshold visual tolerances have been obtained.
The difference in the size of the dots (1 or 4 pixels), and the difference between homogeneous and 5% percentage of covered surface were not significant in visual color tolerances. In comparison with homogeneous color pairs, the textured ones showed a reduction in lightness tolerances around 50% for the strongest textures (those made up of black dots covering 80% of the surface of the samples). In addition, the influence of these last simulated textures is not negligible on chroma and hue tolerances. In all cases visual tolerances consistently increase with percentages of covered surface of 20%, 50% and 80%. We feel that although the effect of texture on color differences would be very important, it is not possible to provide a simple set of parametric factors for all potential textures available in industrial applications.
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ANALYSIS OF COLOUR EFFECT IN JAPAN - SOUTH KOREA WORLD CUP FOOTBALL GAME
Masanori IWASE,* Yutaka NISHIDA,† Tetsuya SATO,† and Ronnier
LUO*
* Colour and
Imaging Institute, University of Derby, UK
† Faculty of
Textile Science, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Japan
Various colours are used for sports. The colours have
some effects for watchers of the sports. In this study, we tried to analyse the
effects of colours used for sports with a viewpoint of a watcher, especially
about the effects of uniform colours. We used the game of the FIFA Japan -
South Korea World Cup in 2002 as a sample of this study. Impression and
visibility of the uniform colours of two teams and their difference on the
video images of the World Cup games, twenty-four games held in South Korea,
were evaluated by fifty watchers through semantic differential method. With the
evaluation results, some of the colour effects in the football game were
discussed.
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STUDIES ON THE EXTERIOR COLOR OF STORE: EFFECT ON THE MOTIVE OF ENTRANCE TO A CLOTHING STORE
Masashi KOBAYASHI* and Ikuko OKAMOTO†
* Faculty of Arts and
Sciences, Osaka Shoin University,
Japan
† Faculty of Education, Osaka Kyoiku University, Japan
Postal
address: Masashi Kobayashi,
Dept. of Clothing Science,
Faculty of Arts and
The effect of color and its
combination on the motive of entrance to a clothing store was investigated by
the experiment.
Eight tri-color combinations used
for the experiment were chosen from the image scale for color scheme proposed
by NCD (Nippon Color Design Lab.). The stimuli used were illustrations of
storefront and were colored by the tri-color combinations. A computer system
with twin display was used for indication of the two model stimuli chosen
randomly from the eight stimuli. The experimental subjects choose one that he
wanted to enter more strongly. The motives of entrance to the model stimuli
were calculated by the Thurston’s method of paired comparison.
It became
clear that the motives of entrance correlate with the clear-grayish values
proposed by NCD. By multi-dimensional scaling analysis, the effects of the
clear-grayish values are indicated as the first-dimensional variable, and the
warm-cool values, as the second one.
On the other hand, the motive
of entrance to a store is effected by the image of the color combination in
order of the image of warm > cool soft > hard. The result obtained by
the experiment, therefore, supports the usefulness of the image scale for the
color scheme proposed.
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A STUDY ON THE
FEASIBILITY OF ESTIMATING SYMPTOM IN TERMS OF FACIAL SKIN COLOUR
Wen-Guey KUO,* S. Y. CHEHNG,* Wen-Hao HSING,* Yi-Jun PAN,† and Yi-Ting SHU‡
* Department of Textile Engineering, Chinese Culture
University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC
† Department of Material and Textiles, Oriental
Institute of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan,
ROC
‡ Institute of
Medicine Engineering, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan, ROC
In the recent decade, the application of colour to
medicine held more and more people’s attention and curiosity, and that would
become an important event in the world. For instance, Color Medicine: The
Secrets of Color / Vibrational Healing and Light: Medicine of the Future
have been published by Klotsche and Liberman respectively. Meanwhile, the
concept of colour has also been employed on the related description of therapy
in the ancient medicine of China, such as five shades (Cyanine, Magenta,
Yellow, White and Black), five elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Gold and Water) and
five organs (Liver, Heart, Spleen, Lung and Kidney) paralleled to each other.
It is obvious that colour has high relativity to medicine or therapeutical
medicine. In addition, nowadays, various high colour techniques have been
developed, including colour specification and image processing. Therefore, in
this study, the CIE L*a*b* colour specification is firstly used to define the facial skin colours of the people tested, and
also further estimate the
relativity between facial skin
colour and symptom. The results indicate that there exits a significant
difference in the lightness of facial skin colour between the normal people and
those having a specific symptom (say Icy-hand-foot) tested. And this result
also happens to those not directly related symptoms (say Dysmenorrhoea and Bad-appetite). For the latter,
there also exists obvious difference in the chroma of facial skin colour. Hence,
the CIE L*a*b* colour specification may be usefully applied to estimating the
relativity between facial skin colour and symptom.
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THE EFFECT OF VARIOUS DEVIATE VISUAL
FUNCTIONS WITH 1º ANGULAR SUBTENSE ON THE COLOUR
FIDELITY OF DISPLAYS
Wen-Guey KUO,* Yuh-Chang
WEI,† Shen-Kung LIAO,‡ Shang-Ming LIN,§ and Alex LIU†
* Department of Textile Engineering, Chinese Culture
University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC
† Department of Information Communication, Chinese Culture
University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC
‡ Department of Fiber and Composite Materials, Feng
Chia University, Taiwan, ROC
§ Department of Material and Textiles, Oriental
Institute of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan,
ROC
For the
technology used on colour management, there has been great achievement since
the researches mostly conducted on the development of cross-media colour
transformation technique. But, so far, the target of the technique, “What you
see is what you get (WYSIWYG)”, has not been still completed, i.e. the results
of the technique have not reached to what people expected. The suitability of
the visual functions used in developing the technique cross-media colour
transformation is one of the most important causes resulting in not reaching to
the target “WYSIWYG”. Showing colour on displays is the first important step of
the colour management. Hence, the visual fidelity of the colours shown on
displays also becomes more important. Although the CIE 1931 and 1964 colour matching functions have been
used in colour specification for decades, many researchers, such as Allen
1970, Nayatani 1983,
Ohta 1985, Rich and Jalijali
1995, Kuo and Luo 1996, and so on, have also found that there exists a great visual mismatch on the
discrimination of colour difference as in terms of the CIE colour matching
functions. And, hence, some significant error would be made on colour
specification due to employing the CIE 1931 and
1964 colour matching functions. Therefore, the four deviate visual functions
developed by Kuo et al., and the CIE 1931 colour matching functions and the CIE
Standard Deviate Observer (CIE SDO) are used in this study to investigate the
effect of these visual functions on the visual fidelity
of the colours shown on displays. The results indicate that the visual colour
fidelity of displays is significantly affected by the deviate visual functions proposed in this article.
Also, the deviate visual functions with the best performance in the
visual colour fidelity of displays among those tested in this study can be the base of the
colour fidelity of the display.
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THE SYNTHESIS AND DYEABILITY OF
CARBOXYLIC ANTHRAQUINONE
DYES FOR POLYESTER (PTT)/WOOL BLEND FABRICS
Shang-Ming LIN,* Shen-Kung LIAO,† Wen-Guey KUO,‡
and Mou-Chuan HWANG*
*
Department of Materials and Textiles, Oriental Institute of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC
†
Department of Fiber and Composite Materials, Feng Chia University, Taiwan, ROC
‡
Department of Textile Engineering, Chinese Culture University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC
Polyester (PTT)/wool blend fabrics have more properties
than pure wool fabrics for dressing. Because of the vastly different nature of
wool and polyester (PTT), two classes
of dyes are employed in a two-bath process or together in a single bath
containing some auxiliaries. Time-and-cost-saving is the main advantage of the
single bath process for dyeing polyester
(PTT)/wool blend fabrics. Two significant disadvantages of this process
are the staining of the wool component by disperse dyes and proportions of the
two dyes varying by the ratio of the component fibres in the blends. An obvious
way to eliminate the above disadvantages is to develop a single dye, which
exhibits equal affinity for both fibres of the blend fabrics, and high fastness
properties. The present work aims to
investigate and develop a series of anthraquinone dyes containing carboxyl
group for the polyester (PTT)/wool blend fabrics. These dyes were obtained by
the condensation 1,5-Dinitro-4, 8-dihydroxyanthraguinone or 1,8-Dinitro-4,
5-dihydroxyanthraguinone with 2-aminobenzoic acid, 3-aminobenzoic acid and
4-aminobenzoic acid. All
dyes were tested on polyester (PTT), and polyester (PTT)/wool blend fabrics at
different pH value (pH = 3, 4, 5, 6) and
their dyeing and fastness properties evaluated. The fastness properties of all
the dyed samples were in accordance with commercial requirements, and one of
the carboxylic anthraquinone dyes was used to dye polyester (PTT) and wool
fabrics to approximately the same depth.
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HOW “TO PAINT” WITH
WORDS: TALKING ABOUT COLOR IN LEARNING SITUATIONS IN GRAPHIC DESIGN
Mabel A. LÓPEZ
Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
This analysis is circumscribed to the verbal
discourse about color in situations of graphic-language learning. It does not
deal with the teaching of color theory in graphic design, however, but with the
linguistic descriptions that involve chromatic aspects in pedagogical
interactions. Only the verbal interactions resulting from the review of
students’ works in the stage of evaluation will be considered as the subject
matter of this analysis. We start from the hypothesis that verbal language
endows the student with an essential tool for the conceptualization of his
graphic production.
The corpus of analysis has been collected by recording teacher-student interactions in the review of students’ works in the Graphic Design Workshop courses at the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism of the University of Buenos Aires, in Argentina.
Color, one of the factors that are evaluated in the practice of design, is a topic of discussion and analysis in the verbal utterances about the project. The quasi-pictorial descriptions of the chromatic resources employed emerge recurrently in the dialogues about the students’ proposals for graphic projects. Not only they show their work to the teacher, but also that action of exhibition is accompanied with a verbal argumentation about the adopted choices. The verbal description depicts —actually “paints”— with words the piece of design. It does not simply exhibits the design, but makes it explicit. That new “coat of paint” reinterprets the project, assigns values to it. Also, this “coating”, or layer, demonstrates in the concrete practice the degree of acquisition of concepts, theories, uses and cultural values assigned to color by the students.
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COLOR SIMULATION METHOD USING IMAGE PROCESSING SOFTWARE
Kiwamu MAKI
Faculty of Human Life Sciences, Jissen Women’s
University, Tokyo, Japan
The image of interiors, buildings or streetscapes
would change when the surface color has changed. Color simulation on personal
computer has become a popular method to check these images nowadays. Changing
color itself is not difficult if you use image-processing software, such as
Adobe Photoshop. However, the color simulation considering lighting condition
is not simple. This study focuses on the color simulation method, which trace
the color change in a certain lighting condition in the real world.
The base of the method was proposed by Yoshiki
Nakamura et al. in 1997: the color should be changed according to the RGB
gradation of the color paper in another image at same point of the area whose
color would be changed in the same lighting condition.
Two points of view, the technique to reserve texture
and to change the shadow part of the same color correctly, were set in this
study to apply this method to the typical scenes of color simulation.
For the first point, the technique that changes
luminance separately from hue and chroma of the color can maintain the
information of the distribution of luminance. The author found that the
assignment of the luminance value calculated by the formula L = 0.3*R + 0.6*G +
0.1*B should change color correctly.
For the second point, the color alternation of the
bright area according to the method described above could not change the shadow
part correctly, so that the measure of the luminance and the gradation of
several cubes covered by achromatic colors were conducted to define the
relationship between the brightness of the colors and the gradation of them in
a certain lighting condition. The modification method of the tone curve dialog
in Photoshop is proposed according to the result of the measure. The tone curve
should be a straight line, where the gradient varies according to the luminance
distribution of the image.
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METAMERISM IN THE
VISUAL SYSTEM
María L. F. de MATTIELLO and Hugo SALINAS
National
Council for Research (Conicet), Buenos Aires, Argentina
For the
colour industry, metamerism is an unpopular word since it implies different
mixes of the colours of the spectrum, which can be seen to be the same only
under certain conditions. However, can this assessment be extended to the
visual system? Or could metamerism be the system’s mechanism to balance
the stimuli it receives?
Back in 1972, in a study on colour equalisation through the use of a
combination of filters while controlling both brightness and colour, Jennifer
Birch noticed that “some subjects found it possible to match the test colour
with more than one combination, while others could not”. “When the individual
results are plotted on the CIE diagram two distinct patterns are obtained.
Firstly the matches may appear to occur along a line similar to the
isochromatic lines described by Pitt (1935), or secondly they may appear to be
grouped within a McAdam (1942) ellipse”. These two observations, which were
substantiated in one of our earlier papers, did not prevent each equalisation
being considered correct for the observers who took part in the experiments.
The question that we would specifically like to
formulate today is whether the metameric equalisations of dichoptic chromatic mixes
are more dependent on brightness than on hue. In other words, which of these
two variables is furthest from those inherent in the colour to be equalled.
Adding the problem of dichoptic vision the mix of three or four primaries, as
proposed by this study, has as its sole objective to place the visual system in
different circumstances that might allow an analysis of variability and
strategy of balance in greater depth.
Experiments were carried out with a Wright-type visual colorimeter to which a new channel was added in order to reproduce the dichoptic situation. The two sets of primaries chosen were 650, 530, and 460 nm, and 650, 565, 513, and 460 nm. There were nine colours to be reproduced: 650, 600, 570, 550, 530, 520, 515, 500, and 450nm. The retinal illumination was kept constant at an average of 40 trolands. Four observers of normal colour vision aged between 35 and 40 took part in the experiments.
From the results it could be observed that 1) the visual system reveals great stability as to perception of hue, making colour a basic and preattentive sensation; 2) greater plasticity as regards brightness; and 3) the summation of brightness is given by the sum of the luminosity from each eye, affected by convenient functions of weight. By adjusting both variables, the system achieves a state of balance by permitting it to maintain a stable perception of the radiations that reach each eye independently.
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NEW MATERIALS FOR CONTEMPORARY ART: EXPERIMENTS WITH HAIR DYES ON
SUPPORTS OF DIFFERENT NATURE
Belén MAZUECOS
Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Granada, Spain
This paper proposes an experimental pictorial technique that uses hair dyes —instead of the traditional pigments and adhesives— on cellulose, protein and synthetic supports.
The experiment has been done with seven kinds of hair dyes (permanent and non-permanent hair dyes) and a natural dye (as a contrast) on eleven types of supports (cotton, linen, jute / felt, suede, leather, dogs’ hair, sheep’s wool, human hair / viscose-polyester, fibrin-polyester).
The main aims of the study were, on the one hand, to test the color fading by studying the resistance to humidity and light of the different products used on each support, comparing the results obtained with synthetic hair dyes with the results obtained with a natural dye such as onion dye and, on the other hand, to take into account the expressive possibilities of the techniques and the materials used. This aspect was made real by producing two paintings.
The different experiences were systematized in a catalogue made out of cards of dye where the results obtained with the different hair dyes and supports were registered, following the methodology proposed by Kate Wells (1997) for the classification and preparation of patterns. In the same way, the numerical experimental data was classified in five tables of indexes of estimation according to the standardized methodology of industrial catalogues of stuff dyes samples. These five tables of indexes were: resistance to humidity (1-5), resistance to light (1-8), indexes of satisfaction (referred to the artistic result) (1-5), indexes of difficulty (referred to the rate of difficulty in the capacity of fixing the color to the support) (1-5), indexes of adaptation (quotient between satisfaction and difficulty) (0-5).
The need to adapt the technique to the support made us compare the results obtained on protein material (the ideal for this kind of dye whose natural support is hair) with those obtained after using other types of supports (cellulose supports and synthetic supports in which the degree of color fixing was not so high). However, because of that we obtained a wide variety of tones, which enlarged the expressive richness. The base color of the different support samples contributed to accentuate the shades of the final works and not disturbed the results of the different estimation indexes tables, because it was taken into account before their elaboration. In the same way, the different qualities of the used fibers enhanced the textural richness of the artistic pieces.
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BINOCULAR STOCHASTIC
MODELS FOR SUPRATHRESHOLD CHROMATIC CHANGES AT ISOLUMINANCE
José M. MEDINA,* José R. JIMÉNEZ,† Enrique HITA,† and
Luis JIMÉNEZ del BARCO†
* Applied Physics, Miguel Hernández University, Elche,
Alicante, Spain
† Department of Optics, University of Granada, Spain
In the present work, we studied the structure of the binocular
color mechanisms at equiluminance using stochastic modeling techniques at the
temporal processing level. Uniform circular random step-wise pulses were
presented on a color monitor at a 2-deg. field size. Their chromaticity were
selected according with the Boynton’s two-stage color-vision
model (Color Res. Appl. 11, 1986, 244-252), along a L&M-constant cone
axis and a S-constant cone axis to produce red, green, yellow or blue
suprathreshold changes (six visual stimuli in each case). The heterochromatic
flicker photometry method was used to obtain an equiluminance level of 15 cd/m2.
Simple visual-reaction times for manual responses were registered on fovea
under monocular and binocular observational conditions
using the standard procedure (M. J. Nissen & J. Pokorny, Percept. &
Psychophys. 22, 1977, 457-462). Two human observers with normal color vision
took part in the experiment. To examine the rate at which responses were
produced at each instant following stimulus presentation (events per millisecond),
the hazard functions were calculated from visual-reaction time raw data for
each visual stimulus and for each observational condition using the common
smoothing procedure (R. D. Luce 1986, Oxford University Press). Comparing both
kinds of functions the binocular patterns found revealed that Poisson
time-homogeneous (W. Schwarz, Percept. &
Psychophys. 46, 1989, 498-500), Poisson time-inhomogeneous (P. L. Smith
& T. Van Zandt, Brit. J. Math. Stat. Psy. 53, 2000, 293-315),
stochastic diffusion models (P. L. Smith, Psychol. Rev. 102, 1995,
567-593) or the parallel grains model (J. Miller & R. Ulrich, Cognitive
Psychol. 46, 2003, 101-151) cannot take into account the binocular hazard functions.
These results suggest that binocular color vision could be viewed as space
distributed in multiple areas more than a point-combination process as previous
studies in color vision suggested (Gegenfurther & Kiper, Annu. Rev.
Neurosci. 26, 2003, 181-206). Our results also suggest that the dynamics of
parvo- and konio-cellular pathways should be incorporated in these models to
take into account the binocular hazard functions at isoluminance.
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GAMUT CHARACTERISTICS OF CHROMATIC AND IDENTICAL DESATURATED ACHROMATIC REPRODUCTIONS
Marin MILKOVIC,*
Nikola MRVAC,† Stanislav BOLANCA,† and Nina KNESAUREK†
* Graficki zavod Hrvatske, Croatia
† Faculty of Graphics Arts, University of Zagreb, Croatia
An important number of parameters decide the quality and fidelity of graphic imprints; among them many are gamut related or gamut influenced.
The research conducted in this paper attempts to define influences that different combinations of rendering methods, as a function of transferring and gamut mapping in reproduction process, have with a various starting color spaces of the original used in graphic technology.
Three different subsections of the test form have been created for research purposes; unsaturated achromatic, chromatic and section for instrumental analysis, stored in three various color spaces: RGB, CMYK and CIE L*a*b.
Each of the samples was rendered with perceptual, saturated, relative and absolute colorimetric methods, and then printed on two different types of printing machines (dry and liquid toner principle) on an identical printing surface, in the same environmental conditions.
Based on the information obtained by spectrophotometric measurements conducted on a whole subject for instrumental analysis, for each of the 24 samples, in CIE L*a*b* color space, single and parallel gamut preview have been constructed and their volume calculated.
Three different methods of visual preview evaluation have been examined, separately for chromatic and restructured (desaturated) achromatic, in standard prescribed conditions, using simultaneous binocular method.
Choosing the best sample was the evaluation criteria; firstly between sets of proposed samples of different rendering methods for each color space, secondly between various individual color spaces for each given rendering method, and thirdly between sets of proposed diversely rendered samples for a given color space, on a reference computer screen.
Based on the obtained results, situations have been defined, and it was possible to establish which rendering method, in combination with initial color space for chromatic or desaturated achromatic reproduction, depending on a type of the digital printing machine, gives specific results related to the gamut.
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STUDIES ON ULTRAVIOLET RAYS
BLOCKING BY DYED FABRICS: COMPARISON BETWEEN DIRECT DYE/CELLULOSE AND
DISPERSE DYE/POLYESTER
Tomoko MIMA* and Masako SATO†
* Seian University of Art and Design, Ohtsu, Japan
† Kio University, Japan
The mechanisms of UV-blocking with dyed fabrics were discussed on the direct dye on the cotton and disperse dye on the polyester. Cellulose film and polyester film were used as model substrates of fabric, avoid of different factors of fabric such as yarn thickness, yarn count, and fabric structure and so on. Two kinds of similar red chromatic color dyes; C.I. Direct Red 23 and C.I. Disperse Red 1 were used. UV-blocking efficiencies of dyes and film substrates were examined on transmittance (%) of UVA-rays and UVB-rays and UPF namely Ultra-rays Protecting Factor of skin. The results were as follows.
1) The UV-rays blocking property of non-dyed polyester film is excellent at UV-region, especially at UVB-region.
2) The polyester film improved the UV-rays blocking property at UVA region by
dyeing.
3) The UV-rays blocking
property of the cellulose film improved highly at both UVA and UVB region. The
UV-rays blocking efficiency of the cellulose film
improved at UVB region, so the highly UV-rays blocking property of the cotton
fabrics are expect by dyeing.
4) As the increase of the piled-up sheets of the films, the increase of UPF was examined bigger than the UV-blocking efficiency.
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COLOUR MANAGEMENT IN URBAN SPACES: THE HISTORICAL AREAS
Faculty of Architecture, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal
When one has to make a chromatic proposal during the rehabilitation process of an historical area, this proposal can be designed having as base different values, guidelines and methodologies.
In general, this proposal reflects the conditional regulations and the current orientations for the interventions in historical centres, inside a more rationalist perspective, privileging the project author’s colour, the colour of the specific era, the pre-existences, cultural and symbolic references.
However, the problematic can be addressed from other points of view, having in attention the spaces functional evolution, their reutilization, the established approaching relationships and the possible different lectures, the form-background relationship and the environmental impact, the treatment for the referential elements in the urban tissue (by tuning or opposition), the light (the natural light and its changes during the day, or according with the seasons; the artificial light and the public lightning, the public art, the special characterization politics, among which the one concerning the buildings, or the built ensembles), the materiality of the built and natural objects, the different pigments existent in the area, the textures (the facade textures and the textures of the revetment materials, of the different elements present in the space, which characterize and condition them), the different ways of lecture and of colour perception, etc.
During the project conceptual process, the colour proposal or the chart (or map) of colours can be at the same time scientific, and in accord with the general orientations and the specific regulations, and also based in a different referential, less rationalist or conventional, when intervening in the cities historical areas.
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DESIGN OF FULL COLOR LIGHTING USING LED AND JAPANESE PAPER MADE
FROM SILK FIBER
Kazunari MORIMOTO,* Kiyohiro BABA,† Yukihiro NARIHIRA,† Masatoshi MORISHITA,† and Takao
KUROKAWA*
* Kyoto Institute of Technology, Japan
† Seiwa Electric MFG Co. Ltd., Japan
Since the light using Japanese paper can make soft light, it is often used to direct a calm atmosphere. However, the reflectance of the surface of conventional Japanese paper is low, and it is very difficult to take out a feeling of gloss. On the other hand, the Japanese paper made from the silk fiber has the gloss that is lusterless on the conventional Japanese paper. The purpose of this paper is to design lighting implement using the silk paper and LED (Light Emitting Diode) and to clarify the psychological effects of that. Small LEDs of red, blue, and green colors are used for lighting. Even if it only uses these three LEDs, it is difficult to make full color. We succeeded to produce full color light by putting many LEDs and giving detailed processing to a reflective side of a hemisphere. The huge advantage of the lighting of LED is that it has small power consumption and a life is long. Some kinds of new lighting implements based on new concepts were made using this lighting implement and Japanese silk paper. We realized new design of the full color light, because the light of artificial LED penetrates the glossy silk paper. For instance, a lighting implement made a beautiful gradation of color based on the design concept of color pile. Since this lighting apparatus can direct light with noble and soft, we think that the LED lighting will become important in the future. Subjective evaluation is carried out about the psychological effects of this light.
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EMOTION INDUCED FROM COLOUR AND ITS LANGUAGE EXPRESSION
Taeko NAKAMURA,* O.
Promsaka Na SAKOLNAKORN,† Aran
HANSUEBSAI,† Pontawee PUNGRASSAMEE,† and Tetsuya SATO‡
* Nara Saho
College, Nara, Japan
† Faculty of
Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
‡ Faculty of
Textile Science, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Japan
Light is
reflected from the surface to the eyes. It is transformed to the RGB cone
responses. These signals are
transmitted to the brain and become colour emotion. The emotion is described by words such as light and warm. It is very important to know the characteristics of words and
languages in which various induced emotions are expressed, because the words are the output of colour cognition
in our brain. Emotions induced by a colour can be expressed by various words, and each word is
connected with an area of a colour space usually. In general, a word is not
corresponding to only a word in a foreign language, but also to a few or
several words. Therefore, understanding the colour emotion phenomena and
cross-cultural comparison of colour emotion have been the important topics of
colour research.
On the other hand, many colour users are
seeking some contribution of a colour emotion research to solve their
communication problems. Going to “globalisation”, it will be more important to
know more objectively about the meanings of emotion words and the differences
of the meanings between different languages.
In our previous study, we collected many
adjective words expressing colour emotion through a dictionary, and we
discussed the relationship between the words and the location of the colour in
the Munsell colour space. In this study, we asked observers to choose a word
corresponding to an emotion induced from a colour. The number of colour samples
used in this study is 212, and the observers are 43 Japanese and 30 Thai. With
the experimental data, we analysed the relationship between colour and word in
both of Japanese and Thai data. Especially, the frequency categorising was
conducted to find out the correspondence of a given colour to an emotion
expressed as a word. Through the frequency categorising, we found some
similarities and discrepancies between Japanese and Thai data.
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COLOUR PERSPECTIVES ON
COLOUR AND PAINT
Gertrud
OLSSON
School of Architecture, Royal Institute of Technology,
Stockholm, Sweden
The purpose of my thesis, and of
this presentation, is to give an outline of the current research in colour and
paint, and also about previous research within the subject of colour in
architecture. The survey begins with a historical perspective of the subject,
and also draws an outline of the theory and practice of colour and paint as a
whole. The intention is to put the Swedish colour research into a larger
context, in time as well as in space. The nature of colour embraces several
different disciplines: technology, science, humanistic science, arts and philosophy.
Colour as a phenomenon has no distinct boundaries. By belonging to different
disciplines and by closely bounding on several different areas of research, the
subject is endowed with both depth and width.
My principal
question is: What do we actually know about colour? This question is followed
by: How is the relationship —at different times and in different areas of
research— between the visual perception of colour and paint as a material?
Is it at all possible to separate the visual perception of colour and the paint
material from one another, without losing any vital aspects in the viewing of
colour?
Colour perspectives consists of three different parts. In the first part
of the survey the theoretical issues of colour are discussed, from ancient times
to the 20th century. The nature of colour as both transitory and
permanent has been a point of interest to philosophers throughout the years.
The ancient philosophers regarded light as what makes colours visible. During
the Renaissance, Alberti and Leonardo studied the relationship between light
and colour. Goethe wrote in his book on colour theory that the nature of colour
is that of a phenomenon.
Throughout the years,
colour has been systemized in colour spaces, colour bodies and colour schemes.
The second part of the survey studies how colour has been used in practice, in
architecture and in space, during the 19th and 20th
centuries. These two centuries are vital for how the outlook on colour has
changed and how the research has progressed.
The third part of the survey focuses on today’s
research on colour and paint in Sweden, shedding light on the research carried
through from the 1960’s and onwards. The current international research is
discussed in a general perspective, while the Swedish research is discussed
more thoroughly. Oftentimes, the international research results form the
historical platform for the Swedish research. The survey, and this paper, is
concluded by a short summary of colour in an architectural perspective.
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COLOR IN THE CITY: AN AESTHETIC
AND SEMIOTIC STUDY OF “CHINATOWN” IN BUENOS AIRES
Andrea PAPPIER
Faculty of Fine Arts, University of La Plata, and Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
The aim of this paper1 is to analyze the use and meanings of color in the “Chinatown” of Buenos Aires. Situated in a small area of Belgrano neighborhood, it presents a characteristic environmental image, product of the traditions of their inhabitants, from Taiwan and continental China. We will present and describe the different color codes that appear in the site. We will examine in a semiotic and aesthetic study different examples of food, shops, advertising, packaging, buildings, dressing, and pieces of visual arts.
1. Theme of
my thesis in course, Master in Aesthetics and Art Theory, Faculty of Fine Arts,
National University of La Plata. Director: Dr. Arch. Fernando
Aliata (UNLP and Conicet), Codirector: Prof. Arch. José Luis Caivano (UBA and
Conicet).
_________________________________________________________________________
PSYCHOPHYSICAL STUDY OF COLOUR
Djurdjica
PARAC-OSTERMAN,* Anica HUNJET,† and Josip BURUSIC‡
* Faculty of Textile
Technology, University of Zagreb, Croatia
† Ministry
of Science, Education and Sports, Zagreb, Croatia
‡ Institute
of Social Research, Zagreb, Croatia
Colour
plays an important role in many practical tasks related to choice,
identification, and as linguistic elements of the visual communication system.
Colour memory is also one of the factors responsible for the phenomenon of
colour constancy. Psychophysical methods and procedures are useful in
determining threshold, including visual field analysis. A psychophysical
experiment was carried out for describing colour appearance under different
viewing conditions. Measurement of visual response can be achieved through
several methods.
In this paper the method of constant stimuli is applied. Analysis were made on the base of comparisons with visual evaluation as well as instrumental CIE L*a*b* evaluation (L*, C* and H* colour values). Yellow and blue hues were the chosen samples. Yes or No response presents a stimulus. Correct response can range from 0% to 100% as shown as stimulus intensity vs. percentage seen. The results obtained, presented in a CIE L*a*b* through C*/L* and a*/b*, showed more disagreement of visual evaluation compared with instrumental evaluation in the area of yellow than blue.
_________________________________________________________________________
INFLUENCE OF CHEMICAL
STRUCTURE OF DYES ON DISCOLOURATION EFFECTS
Djurdjica
PARAC-OSTERMAN, Ana Marija GRANCARIC, and Ana SUTLOVIC
Faculty of
Textile Technology, University of Zagreb, Croatia
From the ecological and physiological point of view the effluents from textile industries are the most serious pollutants. For achieving water of high quality for recycling use the most important thing in discolouration of effluent is the removal of dyes. In practice it was shown that the application of only one method is not sufficient for total discolouration of textile dye effluent. On the basis of the fact that discolouration of textile dye effluent with azo dyes gives the best results, most methods are based on the removal of these dyes.
The aim of this paper is to achieve the total discolouration of different chromogen water systems. For this purpose the effluent with the following two reactive and two acid dyes are chosen: C.I. Acid Blue (azo), C.I. Reactive Blue 19 (antraquinone), C.I. Acid Red 52 (xanthen) and C.I. Reactive Blue 116 (phtalocianine).
The discolouration of dyed water was carried out by the following methods: using Fentons reagent (with and without using ultrasound) and coagulation/flocculation method. The degree of discolouration was determined spectrophotometrically. Additionally, the following ecological parameters of water were determined: chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD) and total organic carbon (TOC). It was concluded that total water discolouration is achieved only in the case of water coloured with azo dye.
_________________________________________________________________________
READABILITY OF CHROMATIC
DOCUMENTS
Silvia PESCIO* and María L. F. de MATTIELLO†
* Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
†
National Council for Research (Conicet), Buenos Aires,
Argentina
It is known that the readability of any document principally depends on the contrast that is established between text and background. This is a subject which has been exhaustively studied in the case of achromatic documents, but the overwhelming appearance of web pages in color has brought to the forefront the problem of chromatic contrast, since texts have become much more colorful with the wider use of the personal computer, color displays and color printers. Obviously, it is not possible to estimate the readability of chromatic documents by using only the three visual factors of achromatic documents: letter size and style, contrast, and luminance of adaptation. For example, in the case of documents whose luminance contrast is 0.0, those with no color difference between letters and background cannot be read, but those with enough color contrast difference can be.
This study attempts first of all to establish a
reference measure between achromatic and chromatic contrast, defining the
equivalent luminance contrast of an achromatic document whose readability is
equal to that of the chromatic document, where background luminance and letter
size are equal. By using equivalent luminance instead of luminance contrast, it
should be possible to substitute the well-known relationship for achromatic
documents, namely the combination of visual factors and readability, for the
unknown relationship of chromatic documents. The material of experimentation
consisted in phrases of one line in length, written in three alphabets of
different readability and with letter sizes between 8, and 20 points. The contrast
between background and letter size varied between 0.9 and 0.1 and the purity of
color between 0.8 and 0.15. The colors and the color difference were measured
in the CIELAB color space. Three situations were analyzed: chromatic letters on
chromatic background, achromatic letters on chromatic background, chromatic
letters on achromatic background. Thirty observers aged between 20 and 24 took
part in the experiment. All had 0.9 to 1.0 of visual acuity and normal color
vision. They observed the document from a distance of 50 cm. and were asked to
respond as to the level of readability using a scale that was composed of six
categories: unreadable, barely readable, readable with some stress, readable
without stress, easily readable and highly readable.
It was found that the readability of
documents having luminance difference is higher than those having chroma
difference, even if they have equal color difference in the CIELAB color space;
the lightness difference is underestimated more than the chroma difference of
the same color difference. Furthermore, the influence on readability of the
color varies with hue, even if the chroma and luminance difference are equal
and particularly if the color use are opponent.
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EFFECT OF LUMINANCE ON COLOR DISCRIMINATION ELLIPSES: ANALYSIS AND
PREDICTION OF DATA
Ralph W. PRIDMORE* and Manuel MELGOSA†
* Turramurra, Australia
† Department
of Optics, University of Granada, Spain
The International Commission on Illumination and other
researchers have called for rigorous studies of the effects of luminance on
chromaticity discrimination (CIE Publication Nº 101, 1993). Four experimental
data sets (W. J. R. Brown, J. Opt. Soc. Am. 41, 1951, 684-688; M.
Melgosa et al., Color Res. Appl. 24, 1999, 38-44; R. S. Berns et al., Color
Res. Appl. 16, 1991, 297-316; and A. Yebra et al., Color Res. Appl.
26, 2001, 123-131) have been analyzed here in order to quantify three effects
of luminance on chromaticity discrimination: on axis dimensions (a and b),
a/b ratios, and ellipses areas.
Ellipses for aperture, surface, and simulated surface
colors in CIE 1931 and 1964 x, y, Y color spaces are shown
to reduce axis dimensions with higher luminance by different functions for the
major and minor axes. Reduction is greater for major than minor axes, thus
improving ellipse circularity with higher luminance. The functions plot
straight lines in log-log scale as power law equations, except luminances below
3 cd/m2. We give formulae for each of the four data sets mentioned
above, and average equations to predict a and b axes, a/b
ratio, and ellipse area for almost any luminance in x, y, Y
spaces. Our equations represent a first approach to formulating these three
effects of luminance, and may need adjustment to accommodate subsequent data or
analyses. In any case, the relative error in predicting actual data with our
formulae is similar to inter-observer variability.
Effect of luminance is remarkable on ellipse area,
which on average halves with every 5 times higher luminance. RIT-DuPont
ellipses (M. Melgosa et al., Color Res. Appl. 22, 1997, 148-155) are
predicted for three levels of equal luminance at 40, 200, and 2000 cd/m2.
In the latter, ellipses are much smaller and are nearer circular than in the
former. It is clear that the relative size and shape of x, y
ellipses cannot be judged unless at some level of equal luminance.
Higher luminance is known to improve color
discrimination, so reduced ellipse area is to be expected but does not occur in
CIELAB and DIN99 spaces due to lack of luminance-level dependency. We discuss
our results’ implications on uniform color spaces, and the desirability that in
future they be luminance-dependent so as to reflect the several and substantial
effects of luminance.
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PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF
DIFFERENT OPTOELECTRONIC IMAGING SENSORS FOR
APPLICATIONS IN COLOR MEASUREMENTS
Jaume PUJOL,* Marta DE LASARTE,* Montserrat ARJONA,*
Meritxell VILASECA,* Francisco Miguel MARTÍNEZ-VERDU,† Dolores DE FEZ,† and
Valentin VIQUEIRA†
* Department
of Optics and Optometry, Technical University of Catalonia, Terrassa,
Barcelona, Spain
† Department of Optics, University of Alicante, Spain
The standard configuration of a digital image capture
device consists of an optoelectronic imaging sensor (CCD, CMOS etc.), the
associated electronics, an objective lens and a frame-grabber. These devices
cannot be used directly as instruments for color measurements. The chromatic
information provided by means of the gray level associated to each channel RGB,
should be transformed in order to obtain colorimetric values. The main stages
to characterize a digital image capture device as an instrument for color
measurements are the spectral and spatial characterization and the color
transformation between the RGB device dependent space and a device independent
space as CIE-XYZ.
In this work we analyze the performance of different
optoelectronic imaging sensors in order to transform image capture devices into
instruments for color measurements. We have compared CCD cameras with different
level of digitalization (8, 10 and 12 bits), different configurations (3
sensors and 1 sensor), CMOS cameras and a digital photographic camera.
Spectral characterization was obtained experimentally
measuring the optoelectronic conversion spectral functions, that is, the
digital response versus spectral exposure curves. From these curves it is
possible to obtain the spectral sensitivities and the color-matching functions.
Spatial characterization was obtained experimentally correcting the response of
each pixel in order to obtain an equal response when a uniform field of light
was captured. Finally, a transformation between the color-matching functions of
the image capture device and the color matching functions of the CIE-XYZ color
space was applied.
The obtained results show the influence of the
different factors studied in the color measurements obtained using optoelectronic
imaging sensors. CCD cameras with a high level of digitalization and 3 sensor
configurations show the best performance.
_________________________________________________________________________
EMOTION WITH A FOCUS ON THE
MACROELEMENT COLOR DURING THE PROCESS OF CONCEPTION OF NEW PRODUCTS IN DESIGN
Viviane Gaspar RIBAS, André Luiz BATTAIOLA, Altair Gomes NUNES JÚNIOR, Bruna Cozer MONTENEGRO, Joana Fernandes de ANDRADE, and Yuri Cristian QUEIROZ
Faculty of Design, Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, Brazil
The color, thought respected and seriously studied at the rigors of science, as an aesthetic visual element in the development of new products might help the designer to emphasize the qualities of the product, present a good design, even if seeming technically equivalent to the competitors.
It can also demonstrate how a company treats quality, organization and credibility with professionalism and, further with the soul of a pianist, to satisfy both the human needs and desires. For color can lead the consumer to fall in love.
However, designers must learn how to look at and hear the colors better, feeling the shapes, tasting the sounds, awaken to the creation of his own solutions to problems. Understanding all the ways of life and self-expression, be them literary, verbal, poetic, sonorous, musical or chromatic, must be holistic and unique, eclectic and only.
The designer must also experience his own search, in a conscious and directed act, trying to organize the shapes, lines, sounds, movements, materials, colors and flavors, to transmit ideas, feelings, human desires, and more than that, try to help others to solve problems that come from human diversity.
Besides that, being a designer is a privilege way to articulate the intelligence, conduct the thoughts, guide the cultural formation of men, the real, the sensitive and inimaginary, leading thoughts which are divergent and convergent, logical and structured, mobilizing and moving new structures in search of the new for the construction of a more hostable place and worthy to the human kind.
_________________________________________________________________________
MAKING COLOR: PICTORIAL
ART TRAINING FOR ENVIRONMENTAL COLOR DESIGN
Silvia RIZZO
Liceo Artistico N. Barabino, Genoa, Italy
I gained experience in pictorial art training
during a workshop I held at the university, where, for the first time, the
Design Laboratory of the Degree Course in Industrial Design of the School of
Architecture of Genoa University organized a workshop on color.
The study of artistic and pictorial
expression may provide an important contribution also in design projects,
because it helps increase the designer’s formal and aesthetic awareness, even
when designing material objects or products made for everyday use or in
projects related to the environment. Indeed the aim of the course was to work
on colors in the environment: the students had to gather chromatic information
about the urban space, proving to be able to see and identify colors linked
both to nature or landscapes and to street furniture in public urban areas.
In order to achieve this result, an initial exercise that I have invented, called “Let’s invent colors”, was very important. Each student created his own palette not according Itten’s system of “subjective colors”, but with the creative attitude of a painter or even the almost scientific attitude of a researcher who needs to go back to the chromatic formulation after making “his own” color.
Other subjects covered during the course were: color space dimension, transparency, synesthesia (color and touch).
This course was attended by, at least, 70 students with great enthusiasm. The result of this course about color will be shown in March 2004 during a meaningful exhibition “Experience in color, between expression and design” promoted by Assessorato alla Qualità Urbana del Comune di Genova and by the University within the cultural activities for Genoa, European Capital of Culture.
_________________________________________________________________________
THE TEACHING OF COLOUR IN THE MASSIVE UNIVERSITY
Ana María
ROMANO and Cecilia MAZZEO
Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism, University of Buenos Aires,
Argentina
The experience that we conducted in the public university has special characteristics due to the amount of students that are currently attending our workshops. This peculiarity gives rise to the need of finding methods of teaching which should guarantee those students equal access to knowledge without losing academic excellence.
The
chairs themselves, which also include a great number of teachers, have the
responsibility of forming these teachers, precisely to meet these objectives.
The teaching of colour has in itself the complex aim both to provide the
necessary theoretical knowledge and, at the same time to educate students’
perception, which is an aspect of great relevance in the courses of design. The
experimental method, almost a laboratory method, which is very useful for
inferring results in a research process and is generally implemented when
teaching at a lower scale in an almost craft like fashion, cannot be controlled
according to the quality of its results and requires looking for solutions
which, without limiting creativity, should enable us to carry out a systematic
process. We conducted the experience in the following subjects: Morphology,
which is part of the curriculum of the course of Graphic Design; Expressive
Means, which is part of the curriculum of the course of Textile and Clothing
Design, and in the first course at the university (Ciclo Básico Común). The
first two had an average of 250 students attending the subject and the third,
about twice as many. The economic crisis the country is undergoing has also
taken its toll. We have had to cut down on the materials we demanded from the
students in order not to prevent their access to knowledge, and have also often
had to adapt our teaching to the lack of space, the scarcity of institutional
equipment and the lack of updating of the same, a fact which has compelled us
to increase our didactic resources, mostly when we find ourselves in the need
of incorporating new contents, as is the case of the teaching of digital
technology. The methods used are diverse and involve different aspects. The
theoretical aspect is imparted by means of a lecture, which offers a first step
of conceptual unity to teachers and students by making use of theoretical
models, ample exemplification, bibliographic material and handouts prepared by
the chair. The practical aspect is dealt with through very rigorous programming
and very detailed guide of practical work prepared ad-hoc in which contents,
materials, objectives and other relevant points are described. All this
material is discussed and exemplified in teachers’ meetings in order to unify
criteria as regards the method of teaching and evaluation of the subject. The
work produced by the students is exposed at the beginning and end of each
class, discussed and commented upon by the team of teachers with a similar
objective, in order to guarantee that all of them get similar enriched
information that has been previously agreed upon by all the teachers who make
up the team. Evaluation criteria, which are derived from the fulfilment of the
objectives and also marking criteria, in order to level the marks of the
different groups, are established with equal rigour. However, this demanding
method of work leads to the production of a great variety of highly creative
alternatives, shown in the results obtained.
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LOOKING FOR AN
INVARIANT UNDER DAYLIGHT CHANGES WITH L, M, S-TYPE SENSORS
Javier ROMERO, Daniel PARTAL, Juan L. NIEVES, and
Javier HERNÁNDEZ-ANDRÉS
Department of Optics, University of Granada, Spain
Several authors have analyzed the mathematical transformations that relate L-, M-, S-cone signals obtained for objects illuminated under different phases of daylight (Q. Zaidi, J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 15, 1998, 1767; S. M. C. Nascimiento et al., J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 19, 2002, 1484). Also affine transformations are found when second-site mechanisms are considered. Based on these considerations, we have tried to find a definition of an invariant parameter for these color-vision mechanisms which allow us to transform a color image, taken in L-, M-, S-cone signals, into a gray-scale image which does not change when the illuminant does. In this way we will help object-recognition tasks and color constancy models. First we have tested the possibilities to define an invariant at a pixel used in previous results in this field with other sensors (G. D. Finlayson and S. D. Hordley, J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 18, 2001, 253). In spite of a good correlation between cone-signals for different daylight illuminants, the definition of the invariant cannot be applied for a variety of objects. In fact, when we transform a color image into a gray-scale image for different phases of daylight, the image histograms do not superpose and then object recognition is impossible. Second, we have tried to improve the invariant in two ways. Due to the fact that the invariant works better for monochromatic sensors, we have employed spectral-sharpening techniques (G. D. Finlayson et al., J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 5, 1994, 1553) to linearly transform the spectral sensitivities of L, M and S into narrower ones. Also, we have tried to define the invariant based on second-site color signals instead of receptoral signals. With these two strategies we obtained better results than with previous, allowing object recognition and obtaining a high degree of color constancy. In addition to these findings, we have studied the linear transformations that relate L, M and S for different illuminants and the dependence with color temperature of the coefficients of the affine transformation that relates second-site mechanisms.
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LINKING PAINTING TO
VISUAL SCIENCE: CREATIVITY VERSUS
QUANTIFICATION IN THE LAB
Lucia RONCHI and
Niccolò ROSITANI
Associazione Ottica Italiana, Florence,
Italy
The study of the visual process started by
quantifying the responses to very simple test objects, then it evolved by
considering increasingly complex images, culminating even with the natural
scenes. For decades the visual system has been regarded mainly as a zero
instrument, and the response categories allowed in the psychophysical
experiments were three: Yes, no, doubtful. Subsequently, the suprathreshold
responsivity was expressed in terms of visual scaling, and color
categorization. However, when attacking the multidimensional world of emotional
and aesthetical evaluations, a difficulty arose: a gap had to be filled-on
because of the lack of a linking model.
Now, the painters, in addition to being privileged by creativity, are visual scientists, however, their starting point and permanent involvement have been and are emotion and aesthetics. They display more or less complex images and sceneries, their obvious tools being any aspect of visual functionality. In other words, the artists since ever dominate the areas that are yet partially unexplored and only tentatively attacked by visual science.
At the start of
the 3rd millennium times seem to be ripe to produce in a sort of
atlas, a documentation, logically ordered, of the examples where visual science
and painting share common views and images. We wonder whether their paths are
running parallel or when and how they will meet.
In the present poster, some results of our personal research are displayed, concerning:
· The degree of visual balance, in terms of inverse Munsell’s value-chroma-area relation, through the spatial analysis of the intra-frame distribution of colored areas.
· The sensation of full immersion produced by large size frescoes, as well as the assessment of their global lightness, according to Ikeda’s RVSI model, by including the apparent sensation of three-dimensionality and of color constancy (discounting the illuminant).
· Moreover, we will display some of the numerous effects which, although elaborated by the painters in their studios, as fruit of their personal “life and style experience”, might be regarded as illustrations of educational flavor in any textbook of visual science: for instance, Purkinje effect and Helmholtz-Kohlrausch effect (when painting with light, on stain glasses), the optical illusions and color symbolism (when painting on ceramic), and, on canvas, representing light (hence, pop-out), the spatial integration through divisionism, the color dependence of adapting luminance, the color constancy, the op-art, the simulation of rural landscapes, and so on.
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CULTURAL AND SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION OF COLOUR
Roberto SALARDI and Rita RAO
Istituto del Colore, San Felice di Segrate, Milan, Italy
From the beginning of the year 2004, Istituto
del Colore, operating in Milan since 1998, will convert from a private entity
to a non-profit association.
It is a centre of reference,
renowned for its activities of research, studies and diffusion of knowledge on
colour. The association collaborates with the Laboratorio Colore e Luce of the
Faculty of Design situated in the Polytechnic of Milan. It is based on a
scientific committee, composed of Italian and foreign researchers, university
professors and recognised experts and technicians.
Its main objectives are the following:
supporting and promoting actions of research, popularisation and information
regarding the scientific activity of the study of colour, promoting training of
all levels of operators in the field, favouring the exchange of information and
collaboration with other similar organisms, public and private, organizing
courses, conventions and seminars of studies, and developing the relation between
those entities.
Istituto del Colore follows the stages of
progress for the research of application of colour and proposes strategies of
innovative and operational development. For such results it disposes of a
centre of documentation, where it is possible to consult up to date material,
integrated with volumes in the theme of colour, specialized magazines and
several periodicals published by industries of the field.
Its privileged partners are professionals,
researchers and businessmen who use colour as an element of primary importance
in their production, entities and institutions responsible in the programming
of the territory, and protection of environmental and urban resource.
The activities of Istituto del Colore are
completed with its own editorial activity, by means of publications of books in
the theme of colour and of the following periodicals, directed by Arch. Rita
Rao:
·
Colore (quarterly magazine specialized on
the theme of colour)
·
G&D
Grafica e Disegno
(quarterly magazine specialized on graphic art and printing)
·
Piùsport (quarterly magazine specialized on
the theme of architecture and design for sports and leisure)
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FOUR SOIL COLOR CHARTS COMPARED IN CIELAB COLOR SPACE
Manuel SÁNCHEZ-MARAÑÓN,* Rafael DELGADO,* Encarnación GÁMIZ,* Juan-Manuel MARTÍN-GARCÍA,† Rafael HUERTAS,‡ and Manuel MELGOSA‡
* Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, University of Granada, Spain
† Department of Geology, University of Jaén, Spain
‡ Department of Optics, University of Granada, Spain
Soil colors are visually assessed by comparing a soil sample (wet, moist or dry) with a standard set of color chips. Currently, there are two main sets of color chips manufactured by the Munsell Color Company (USA) and Fujihara Industry Company (Japan), respectively. Several editions of these charts have been published and are indistinctly used by soil scientists in both field and laboratory. The chips in so-called Soil Color Charts are designated by Munsell notation, trying to be systematically arranged in visual steps of equal size.
Two editions (new and used) of the Munsell Soil Color Charts (USA) and two editions (new and used) of the Revised Standard Soil Color Charts (Japan) have been analyzed. Using CIELAB color space, we are interested in evaluating the regularity of the chips from these four soil color charts from different manufacturers and distinct use degree. Color measurements of all chips were performed using a Minolta CM-2600d spectrophotometer, operating with specular component excluded, and a bandwidth of 10 nm. Nine measurements (3 zones × 3 replications) were performed for each one of the color chips, and the average result was adopted for further computations.
The lines of constant Munsell hue and chroma were plotted on the a*b* diagram. These lines were more evenly spaced in the new editions than in the used ones. CIELAB hue-, chroma-, and lightness-differences between neighboring chips were very similar in American and Japanese new editions. However in the used charts a greater irregularity in the measured values of DH*, DC*, DL* was found. Considering average values of all individual chips, it was found that in the new editions, there were some chromatic discrepancies between American and Japanese charts. In the new American edition, the color coordinates of the chips were closer (lower CIELAB color difference) to tabulated reference data than in the new Japanese edition.
We believe that the original quality of printing, as well as the color fading consequence of field use, lead to relevant color changes in standard soil color charts.
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Faculty of Applied Psychology, Saint Petersburg State Institute of Psychology & Social Work, Russia
The goal of this report is to compare color concepts of different investigators. A mirror changes the left direction into the right one, and vice versa. So, for example, the sign of the cross for catholic in the mirror reflection corresponds to the one for orthodox Christians.
Similarly; one can imagine the reflection of colors in the color circle, as far as I know, Newton, Lambert, Young, Helmholtz, Maxwell, Munsell, Judd and Wyszecki arranged clockwise the transition from red through green to blue. As a rule, these colors were stimulus ones.
As for Runge, Goethe, Schopenhauer, Hering, Kandinsky, Steiner, Ostwald, Itten and Wittgenstein, all of them gave the same disposition of colors but in the opposite direction. They have dealt with perceptive colors.
Achromatic colors kept their place in volumetric (three-dimensional) representation. It is explained by the fact that almost all investigators disposed achromatic axis in the color solid passing vertically.
Thus, data obtained by physicists and physiologists turned to be mirror reflections of the ones obtained by psychologists and artists. From here we suppose that there is some intercomplementarity between these data.
On the basis of function lateralization (Beauty and the brain, Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag, 1988), left and right color directions in the color circle are explained by priority location of stimulus colors and color-designations in the left part of the brain, while perceptive colors are located in the right hemisphere. In chromatism, lateralization is related with certain similarity of functions in the left hemisphere and functional individualization of the right one. These confirm our assumption.
On the other hand, in his theory Newton considered purple as a color formed by red and blue rays of the spectrum, while green is a primary color. In Goethe’s theory purple is a primary color, while green is a blend of yellow and blue.
The given suppositions in chromatism permitted to obtain an adequate concept for the outer (according to Newton) and inner (according to Goethe) color space. In common with color archetypes (Serov, “Semantics of color”, Proc. SPIE vol. 4421, 2002, p. 48, 430), this space results in obtaining the “atomic” (archetypical) model of a personality.
In conclusion, I might say that as far as the left hemisphere is related with general concepts, known from the past, and the right hemisphere is related with percepts and images, that will be materialized in future, no doubt the art of colors is expected to be developed in future also.
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TARGET-POSITION DEPENDENCE OF THE
EFFECT OF THE PROPORTIONAL: CONCENTRATION ERRORS FOR DYEING POLYACRYLIC WITH
BASIC DYES
Boris SLUBAN and
Olivera äAUPERL
University of
Maribor, Slovenia
In this research the effect of the
proportional concentration errors will be examined with numerical experiments
using optical data of basic dyes applied on polyacrylic. A larger set of target
colours regularly spaced throughout the colour space will be chosen. For each
target colour several different recipes will be treated and their sensitivities
to the proportional concentration errors will be predicted in the following
way. Dye concentrations in each particular recipe will be perturbed according
to a chosen scheme for one and two standard strength errors and then the
predicted mean square colour change (expressed in the CMC (2:1) units) will be
used as a measure for recipe sensitivity to proportional errors. The influence
of target-position on the predicted sensitivity (of the recipe colour) to the
proportional concentration errors will be examined. Then this established
target-position dependence of the recipe sensitivity to the proportional errors
will be compared to the target-position dependence of the recipe sensitivity to
random concentration errors, which was determined in a previous research.
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Sérgio SUDSILOWSKY
Degree in Graphic Design, Senac College of Communication and Arts, São Paulo, Brazil
The article presents a teaching methodological experience in graduation, which uses color as a fundamental element for the creative development of the students in the Design course, since it helps improving some of the necessary aspects for the graduation of the intended professional, emphasizing the humanistic aspects in the professional relationship and, above all, in the use of color applied to the object —be it two-, three- or poly-dimensional.
This element of communication comes from the positive results obtained in the classroom, where we approach the object of study “color” under several fields of knowledge: we adopt philosophy as a starting point —the color doctrine by Goethe, with its poetry, in contrast with Newtonian physics and its rationalist experiments—, to get to the study of human perception and to the formulation of the concept of “creative imagination” proposed by Bachelard, observing through history how a chromatic phenomenon happened in the most important schools of art and thinking, leading to the decomposition of color in its main elements —hue, value and saturation—, fundamental step to the elaboration of the main systems for chromatic ordering developed until current days and its professional use —Munsell, Otswald, NCS, Pantone, etc.
Thus, starting from the conceptualization of color as an “action” and “passion” of the light (Goethe), we developed focused interventions, group activities and professional experience simulations, which go from imaginative conceptualization of projects, the transposition of concepts in colors and shapes, elaboration of briefings and its further materiality, in order to provide the student with needed theoretical and operational tools to use color as a fundamental element in the constitution of shape and its meaning, above all on the aspects observed by visual communication, to the development of several products which, most of all merits, express how the subjectivity of a group of students —designers to be— interpret and solve in a creative way, having color as a supporting element, a suggested imaginary concept, i.e., make passion into action.
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COLOUR IN TEXTILE
DESIGN: IMPORTANCE AND INTERVENTION IN THE
HABITAT AND THE INHABITING
Diana
VARELA
Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism, University of Buenos Aires, and Fundación de Investigaciones Visuales Franco Mattiello, Buenos Aires, Argentina
In view of
the extent of the topic we are focusing on and the multiplicity of approaches
that can be adopted to deal with it, we consider it convenient to delimit the
subject by classifying taxonomically the textile design in order to focus our
area of research in a new thematic direction.
Afterwards we will concentrate on the group that best responds to the research we are carrying on. We will explain those concepts based on the formulation and participation of the textile element in shaping our habitat and our ways of inhabit in it.
In order to organize our analysis, we will establish constructive typologies, conditioned by their manufacturing techniques, and post-productive typologies, conditioned according to their purpose. We have then two main areas of study. On the one hand, the structural stage, whose raw material is thread and whose resultant is the manufacture of woven. This division generates two categories of designs: constructive and extra constructive. Due to this difference, each one of these areas takes its own criteria and intrinsic structures, helping to determine —in this occasion— an aesthetic analysis with the accent on the chromatic aspect.
The second aspect pays attention to the post-production stage, i.e. its use or purpose. In this stage the fabrication of the weft, as a structure, is fundamental. Thus two different types of spatiality are defined: clothing and habitat. These two typologies are not only the most important ones for our research, but also have a strong kinship which can be analysed formally and chromatically allowing us to see the definition of architecture from a different point of view.
Now we have introduced the macro taxonomies, it is our intention to elaborate on them further emphasizing the importance and the leading role of colour in clothing and habitat.
Each of these stages, on seeing the spaces from a textile point of view, generates the idea of corporal refuges, which become habitable and protected of our closeness. In short, making our habitat essential for our life.
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COLOR VISUALIZATION SYSTEM FOR
THE DISCRIMINATION OF INDISTINGUISHABLE SAMPLES IN THE VISIBLE SPECTRUM
Meritxell VILASECA,* Jaume PUJOL,* Montserrat ARJONA,* Marta DE LASARTE,* and Francisco Miguel MARTÍNEZ-VERDU†
* Department of Optics and Optometry, Technical University of Catalonia, Terrassa, Barcelona, Spain
† Department of Optics, University of Alicante, Spain
Samples with the same color or appearance in the
visible range, and therefore indistinguishable by the human eye, can have
different properties in other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. Basically,
the reflectance or transmittance spectra of these samples are expected to be
similar in the visible range but can differ in other regions. In this work we
present a system that uses the information included in different spectral bands
of the near-infrared region of the spectrum (800 to 1000 nm) in order to
discriminate samples with the same appearance in the visible range. This
spectral range can contain information related to the chemical properties of
the object being analyzed and therefore it can be useful to achieve a
separation between samples with similar color but different composition. These
properties can be of application in several areas such as paints, textile
industry and chemical industry.
The experimental set-up used
consists of a monochrome CCD camera (Hamamatsu C7500-51) connected to a frame
grabber (Matrox IP8), a halogen lamp (Philips 15V 150W) used to light the
samples and filters that define the different spectral bands in the
near-infrared region. The proposed system is a color visualization system that
permits to obtain false colored images of the samples using a color space
representation, which associates the camera responses of each spectral band of
the near-infrared range to a color channel of a CRT monitor. The used color
space representation is based on a principal component analysis (PCA)
decorrelation method that facilitates the colorimetric discrimination between
objects and removes the present correlation of the different bands. We have
tested different pseudocoloring methods and PCA provides the best results in
terms of visual discrimination and contrast levels. With this method, and
considering a set of 25 samples, we obtain CIELAB color differences similar to
60 units (mean CIELAB color difference between the set of samples).
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EFFECTS OF S-CONE
EXCITATION ON COLOR DISCRIMINATION THRESHOLD
Hirohisa YAGUCHI,* Naotaka WATANABE,* and Satoshi SHIOIRI†
*Department of Information and Image Sciences, Chiba University,
Japan
† Department of Medical Systems Engineering, Chiba
University, Japan
It is well known that the short-wavelength sensitive
cones (S-cones) contribute to human color vision in a different manner from
those of the middle-wavelength cones (M-cones) and the long-wavelength cones
(L-cones). We are interested in the contribution of S-cones
to color discrimination threshold. We measured color discrimination thresholds
in several adaptation conditions with different excitation of the S-cone. In the
experiment, the observer saw a brief test stimulus with a color slightly
different from a background color for adaptation. The background color was
presented in a square field whose size was 6 degrees by 6 degrees. We examined
several background colors with different S-cone stimulus values but having the
same luminance. The test stimulus was presented in any one of four panes, each
of them 1 degree by 1degree, aligned as a 2 by 2 matrix with a fixation point
in its center. The observer’s task was to report which of the four panes
contained the test stimulus. Increment or decrement thresholds were determined
along the directions of ±DS, ±D (L+M), ±D (S-(L+M)), and ±D (L+M+S) in the (S, L+M) plane of cone excitation space. The
staircase method was used to obtain thresholds. From the present experiments,
we obtained the following three major results. Firstly, discrimination
thresholds along the S-cone change of ±DS were
elevated with increasing S-cone stimulus values of the background color, but
thresholds along the luminance direction that is ±D (L+M) were independent of the S-cone component of background color.
Secondly, the thresholds along the yellow-blue opponent color direction of ±D (S-(L+M)) did not decrease
down to the minimum at an equal energy white background, but decreased with the
S-cone component of background color. This result is different from the
previous result of the experiment where the minimum threshold along the
red-green opponent color direction of ±D (L-M) was obtained at the equal energy white background. Thirdly, the
increment threshold of S-cone direction +DS was smaller
than the decrement threshold DS. The third
result suggests that the nonlinearity of S-cone contribution to color
discrimination should not be small.
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WAVELENGTH DISCRIMINATION THRESHOLDS AND PSYCHOPHYSICAL MONOCHROMATICITY. DEFINITION OF THE MONOCHROMATICITY DEGREE
Jesús ZOIDO and Fernando CARREÑO
School of Optics, Complutense University of Madrid,
Spain
As it is well known, from a physical point of view, it
does not exist in nature a truly monochromatic spectral distribution of radiant
flux. However, when the psychophysical aspect in the perception of a color
stimulus is considered, the experimental curves of wavelength discrimination
thresholds point out how each wavelength has associated a spectral threshold
(undistinguishable region). Thus the spectral distributions associated with
monochromatic stimuli have a certain spectral width. For a given observer, a
monochromatic stimulus is characterized by its corresponding associated
wavelength and spectral width. In this contribution we propose a systematic
method to be used in order to quantitatively evaluate the psychophysical
monochromaticity of an arbitrary color stimulus.
For each given spectral distribution of radiant flux
it is possible to associate a probability density function (PDF). This function
allows us to define the average wavelength of the corresponding color stimulus
(expected value of l) and its spectral width (proportional to the
variance). On the other hand, this formal treatment opens the possibility to
establish an algebra in order to describe all the spectral distributions of radiant
flux.
From the width of two nearby distributions, a physical
criterion of spectral undistinguishability is obtained. By considering this
criterion and the experimental curves of wavelength discrimination, the set of
all the monochromatic stimuli for the visual system is obtained (monochromatic
basis). The number of elements of this basis provides de dimension associated
with the space spanned by all the possible monochromatic primary stimuli
(primary set of wavelengths). Any color stimulus can be expressed as a
pseudo-linear combination of the elements belonging to the monochromatic basis
obtained from the experimental curves of wavelength discrimination. The number
of elements necessary in order to reproduce a given color stimulus, and its
corresponding weights, allow us to define a quantitative measure of the
psychophysical monochromaticity: the monochromaticity degree. With this
definition, the stimuli that belong to the monochromatic basis have associated
the unity as monochromaticity degree.
The results obtained suggest us that in color matching
experiments primary stimuli belonging to the monochromatic basis should be
used.
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