1. ECE 638: Principles of Digital Color Imaging Systems
Lecture 6: CIE Standards

2. Synopsis Brief review of primaries Chromaticity diagram for primaries
Overview of CIE
Photometry and relative luminous efficiency function
CIE 1931 standard observer
RGB form
XYZ form

3. Review: Primary mixture and sensor response

4. Review: Match equation
Response to test stimulus
Match amounts of primaries

5. Review: Color matching functions
Given primaries , let denote the amount of these primaries required to match the stimulus for each fixed wavelength .
Thus, we have
where ,
the matrix is given as before,
and
Combining these results, we obtain

6. Review: Computation of match amounts for an arbitrary stimulus
Consider arbitrary stimulus
Match amounts are given by
This looks like a sensor

7. Chromaticity coordinates for primaries
In same way that we did for the sensor response, we can define chromaticities corresponding to primary amounts required to match a given stimulus as viewed by a given sensor

8. Spectral locus in primary chromaticity space
For the special case of a monochromatic stimulus with wavelength , the primary amounts are given by the color matching functions evaluated at that wavelength.
In this case, when plotted as a function of , the chromaticity coordinates yield the spectral locus.

9. Example: three channel overlap sensor and monochromatic primaries
Sensor response functions
Primaries
Primary response matrix

10. Color matching functions

11. Spectral locus
Note coordinates (1,0,0), (0,1,0), and (0,0,1) that occur at wavelengths 650, 550, and 450 nm, respectively.

12. Compare to common CIE chromaticity diagram

13. What is the CIE? International standards organization
Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage (International Commission on Illumination)
an organization devoted to international cooperation and exchange of information among its member countries on all matters relating to the science and art of lighting.
Formed in Predecessor organization formed in 1903.

14. Photometry Matching of brightness Difficulties
Color matching involves complete match between two stimuli, i.e. under match condition, test stimulus and match stimulus look exactly the same.
Brightness matching involves matching one attribute (brightness or lightness) of two stimuli which will generally differ in other attributes (hue and saturation).
Several approaches may be used to overcome this limitation.

15. Flicker photometry
Consider the apparatus shown below which presents a stimulus that periodically switches between two different stimuli.

16. Flicker photometry (cont.)
A match occurs when the observer fails to see temporal variation (flicker) in the stimulus.
For the HVS, the temporal frequency response to a time-varying chromatic stimulus has a lower cut-off frequency than the temporal frequency response to a time-varying achromatic stimulus.
For flicker frequencies between 10 Hz and 40 Hz, the two stimuli will appear to have the same hue and saturation, but may differ in brightness until the matching stimulus is adjusted to achieve a match.

17. Summary of flicker photometry observations
Luminance Match?
Chrominance Match?
Flicker Frequency
Observation No
f0 < 10 Hz
Flicker in lightness and hue or saturation
Yes
Flicker in hue or saturation
10 Hz < f0 < 40 Hz
Flicker in lightness
No flicker
60 Hz < f0
This is the regime that is useful for flicker photometry

18. Relative luminous efficiency
An achromatic sensor with response function is called the standard photometric observer.

19. Definition of luminance
cd – candela
lm – lumen

20. CIE 1931 standard RGB observer
Observer consists of color matching functions corresponding to monochromatic primaries
Primaries
R – 700 nm
G – nm
B – nm
Ratio of radiances
Chosen to place chromaticity of equal energy stimulus E at center of (r-g) chromaticity diagram, i.e. at (0.333,0.333)
that areas under color matching functions are identical.
Based on observations in a 2 degree field of view using color matching method discussed earlier.

21. Color matching functions for 1931 CIE standard RGB observer

22. Chromaticity diagram for 1931 CIE standard RGB observer

23. CIE 1931 standard XYZ observer
The CIE also defined a second standard observer based on a linear transformation from the 1931 RGB color matching functions.
The XYZ observer has the following properties:
The color matching functions are non-negative at all wavelengths.
The chromaticity coordinates of all realizable stimuli are non-negative.
The color matching function is equal to the relative luminous efficiency function
To achieve these properties, it was necessary to use primaries that are not realizable.
The chromaticities of the primaries lie outside the spectral locus.
What does it mean for a primary to not be realizable?

24. Why non-negative color matching functions?
The 30-ton ENIAC computer with 19,000 vacuum tubes and 1,500 relays was placed in service in 1945.
IBM introduced the 5150 PC in 1981.
Color scientists were worried about calculation errors, especially those due to working with negative numbers.

25. Color matching functions for 1931 CIE standard XYZ observer

26. Chromaticity diagram for 1931 CIE standard XYZ observer

27. Fundamental spectral components of 1931 CIE XYZ primaries
From Wolski, “A Review of Linear Color Descriptors and their Applications.” 1994