1. Introduction
Colorimetry specifies numerically a perceived color. The colorimetric system published by the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) in 1931 is one of the foundations of modern colorimetry [
1G. Wyszecki and W. S. Stiles, Color Science, 7th ed. (John Wiley & Sons, 1982).
]. Colorimetry is also concerned with the specification of the color difference between two colors. The CIE 1931 system is not a uniform color space. The perceived color difference between two color points is not linearly proportional to their Euclidian distance in the CIE 1931 system. CIE published two approximately uniform color spaces, CIELAB and CIELUV, in 1976 [
1G. Wyszecki and W. S. Stiles, Color Science, 7th ed. (John Wiley & Sons, 1982).
]. CIE recommended the color difference formulas in CIELAB and CIELUV as the Euclidian distance of two color points in the two color spaces. For improving the 1976 color difference formulas, CIE recommended two formulas CIE94 and CIEDE2000 in 1994 and 2000, respectively [
2Commission Internationale de l’Eclairage (CIE), Industrial colour-difference evaluation, CIE Publication No. 116 (Vienna, 1995).
,
3Commission Internationale de l’Eclairage (CIE), Improvement to Industrial colour-difference evaluation, CIE Publication No. 114–2001 (Vienna, 2001).
].
A color difference formula is an empirical result derived from its collected data set. The derivation of color difference formula is mainly based on the color difference ellipses measured from psychophysical experiments [
1G. Wyszecki and W. S. Stiles, Color Science, 7th ed. (John Wiley & Sons, 1982).
–
4M. R. Luo, G. Cui, and B. Rigg, “The development of the CIE 2000 colour-difference formula: CIEDE2000,” Color Res. Appl. 26(5), 340–350 (2001). [CrossRef]
]. A color difference ellipse represents the same color difference with respect to the color center of the ellipse for the same lightness. There are two methods for measuring color difference ellipses. The first is the matching method, in which an observer assesses whether or not two colors match [
1G. Wyszecki and W. S. Stiles, Color Science, 7th ed. (John Wiley & Sons, 1982).
]. A chromaticity discrimination ellipse can be derived from the threshold color differences measured with the matching method. MacAdam ellipses are the first measured chromaticity discrimination ellipses that showed the non-uniformity of the CIE 1931 system [
1G. Wyszecki and W. S. Stiles, Color Science, 7th ed. (John Wiley & Sons, 1982).
]. The second is the gray scale method, in which an observer rates the perceived color difference between two colors in terms of some reference gray scale. A suprathreshold color difference ellipse can be calculated from the rating results. The gray scale method was adopted in the developments of CIE94 and CIEDE2000 [
4M. R. Luo, G. Cui, and B. Rigg, “The development of the CIE 2000 colour-difference formula: CIEDE2000,” Color Res. Appl. 26(5), 340–350 (2001). [CrossRef]
]. An ideal color difference formula should be able to predict both the threshold and suprathreshold color differences.
The color samples used in the developments of CIE94 and CIEDE2000 are surface colors [
4M. R. Luo, G. Cui, and B. Rigg, “The development of the CIE 2000 colour-difference formula: CIEDE2000,” Color Res. Appl. 26(5), 340–350 (2001). [CrossRef]
]. The pigments of the color samples are not fluorescent and not highly saturated. It is a trend to develop flat-panel displays of wide color gamut (WCG). Because of the highly saturated primaries of WCG displays, CIE color difference formulas may not be suitable for calculating the color difference between two high saturation colors that can be shown by WCG displays [
5S. Wen and H.-J. Ma, Investigation of Chromaticity Discrimination Ellipses for Displays,” in Society for Information Display 2012 International Symposium Digest of Technical Papers (Society for Information Display, 2012), pp. 725–728.
]. On the other hand, it was shown that the perceived color difference depends on texture effect [
6R.-C. Wu, R. H. Wardman, and M. R. Luo, “A comparison of lightness contrast effects in CRT and surface colours,” Color Res. Appl. 30(1), 13–20 (2005). [CrossRef]
,
7J. H. Xin, H.-L. Shen, and C. C. Lam, “Investigation of texture effect on visual colour difference evaluation,” Color Res. Appl. 30(5), 341–347 (2005). [CrossRef]
]. The display color is self-luminous and its color difference characteristics may be different from that of surface color. Recently four chromaticity discrimination ellipses were measured by the use of a liquid crystal display [
5S. Wen and H.-J. Ma, Investigation of Chromaticity Discrimination Ellipses for Displays,” in Society for Information Display 2012 International Symposium Digest of Technical Papers (Society for Information Display, 2012), pp. 725–728.
]. The measured ellipses agree with MacAdam ellipses but significantly differ from that predicted by CIEDE2000 for red and blue colors.
Color processing is required for the video programs shown on WCG displays for a color rendering intent. For the applications of video color processing, both the predictions of the threshold color difference and suprathreshold color difference are required. The prediction of the threshold color difference also relates to the required bit depth for the avoidance of color banding [
8T. Fujine, T. Kanda, Y. Yoshida, M. Sugino, M. Teragawa, Y. Yamamoto, and N. Ohta, “Bit depth needed for high image quality TV-evaluation using color distribution index,” J. Disp. Technol. 4(3), 340–347 (2008). [CrossRef]
]. This article proposes a color difference metric based on the chromaticity discrimination ellipses for calculating the color difference around the threshold. The color difference between two color points in CIELAB is calculated from the chromaticity discrimination ellipses between them. Numerical examples are shown for comparing the color differences calculated by CIEDE2000 and the proposed method.
2. Chromaticity discrimination ellipse
A chromaticity discrimination ellipse can be calculated by fitting a set of assessments of the same lightness to the formula in CIELAB [
1G. Wyszecki and W. S. Stiles, Color Science, 7th ed. (John Wiley & Sons, 1982).
]
where the
g coefficients,
g11,
g12 and
g22, are fitting constants; Δ
a* =
a*-
a*
c, Δ
b* =
b*-
b*
c; (
a*
c,
b*
c) are the coordinates of the color center.
Equation (1) can be transformed to the cardinal coordinates (
,
) by rotating the axis Δ
a* to
with an angle
θ so that the ellipse can be represented as [
1G. Wyszecki and W. S. Stiles, Color Science, 7th ed. (John Wiley & Sons, 1982).
]
where
a and
b are the lengths of the major and minor axes, respectively, i.e.,
a> b;
θ is the orientation angle of the ellipse. The
g coefficients in
Eq. (1) and the characteristic parameters
a,
b and
θ in
Eq. (2) are related by
g11 = cos
2θ/a2 + sin
2θ/b2, g22 = sin
2θ/a2 + cos
2θ/b2, and
g12 = (1
/a2-1
/b2) sin
θcos
θ.
Figure 1
shows the 25 MacAdam ellipses and their corresponding ellipses predicted by the CIEDE2000 with a unit color difference (Δ
E00 = 1) in CIELAB. The color difference ellipse predicted by the CIEDE2000 is called the CIEDE2000 ellipse for simplicity. The ellipses are barely observed if they are plotted with their actual axis lengths. The MacAdam ellipses and CIEDE2000 ellipses shown in the
Fig. 1 are enlarged so that they can be clearly shown. The enlargement factors shown in the caption of
Fig. 1 will be explained in the Section 5. We can see the significant difference between the MacAdam ellipses and CIEDE2000 ellipses in red and blue regions. The ellipse axis lengths depend on the parametric effects of the psychophysical experiment [
9S.-S. Guan and M. R. Luo, “Investigation of parametric effects using small colour differences,” Color Res. Appl. 24(5), 331–343 (1999). [CrossRef]
].
Figure 1 clearly shows that the characteristic parameters
a,
b and
θ of an ellipse significantly depend on the chroma
C* and hue angle
h* defined in CIELAB, in which
C* = (
a*
2 +
b*
2)
1/2 and
h* = tan
−1(
b*/
a*)
1/2. In this article, the hue angle is in unit of degree except otherwise specified. The empirical formulas of the characteristic parameters can be obtained by the polynomial regression in terms of
C* and
h* from a set of chromaticity discrimination ellipses [
5S. Wen and H.-J. Ma, Investigation of Chromaticity Discrimination Ellipses for Displays,” in Society for Information Display 2012 International Symposium Digest of Technical Papers (Society for Information Display, 2012), pp. 725–728.
]. The chromaticity discrimination ellipses to be fitted are called the training ellipses.
Fig. 1 MacAdam ellipses, the corresponding MacAdam fitting ellipses, and the corresponding ellipses predicted by the CIEDE2000 with Δ
E00 = 1. The MacAdam ellipses and MacAdam fitting ellipses are enlarged tenfold. The CIEDE2000 ellipses are enlarged by a factor of 3.226. Ref [
5S. Wen and H.-J. Ma, Investigation of Chromaticity Discrimination Ellipses for Displays,” in Society for Information Display 2012 International Symposium Digest of Technical Papers (Society for Information Display, 2012), pp. 725–728.
]. measured the ellipses labeled from 1 to 4.
For satisfying the periodic boundary condition for the hue angle, we modify the polynomial regression given in Ref [
5S. Wen and H.-J. Ma, Investigation of Chromaticity Discrimination Ellipses for Displays,” in Society for Information Display 2012 International Symposium Digest of Technical Papers (Society for Information Display, 2012), pp. 725–728.
] as
where α
= a,
b and
θ;
N is the regression order; α
ijk are the constants calculated by the regression. The use of higher regression order increases the fitting accuracies for the training ellipses but may result in the less accuracy for the ellipse that is not included in the training ellipses. The reduction of accuracy is called the over-interpolation. The number of α
ijk coefficients in
Eq. (3) is
Nt = (
N + 1)(
N + 2)(
N + 3)/6. The value of
Nt should be much less than the number of the set of training ellipses for avoiding the over-interpolation. The characteristic parameters
a,
b and
θ of 25 MacAdam ellipses shown in the
Fig. 1 are taken as the training ellipses for an example. We take
N = 2, which corresponds to
Nt = 10. The ellipses calculated by the regression are called the MacAdam fitting ellipses, which are also shown in the
Fig. 1. We can see that the MacAdam fitting ellipses fit the MacAdam ellipses well in the color regions where the density of the distribution of MacAdam ellipses is high. Comparing the MacAdam fitting ellipses with the CIEDE2000 ellipses, we can see the significant improvement of the prediction accuracy of the chromaticity discrimination ellipses with the regression model.
3. Color difference in unit of just noticeable difference
This section presents the color difference metric based on the chromaticity discrimination ellipses.
Figure 2
shows the diagram for the calculation procedure of the color difference between the two color points
Qs and
Qt. Actually the axis lengths and orientation angles of neighboring chromaticity discrimination ellipses are nearly the same. The differences of the axis lengths and orientation angles shown in the
Fig. 2 are exaggerated. The color difference is calculated by counting the number of just noticeable differences between
Qs and
Qt. We define the color vectors
Qs = (
a*
s,
b*
s) and
Qt = (
a*
t,
b*
t) corresponding to
Qs and
Qt, respectively, and the color difference vector
V =
Qt -
Qs. The unit vector
u =
V /|
V| = (cos
φ, sin
φ), in which
φ is the angle from the Δ
a* axis to
V. Starting from
Qs, which is also denoted as
P0 in the
Fig. 2, we have the first intersection point (
P1) of the vector
V and the chromaticity discrimination ellipse with the color center at
P0; the second intersection point (
P2) of the vector
V and the chromaticity discrimination ellipse with the color center at
P1, and so on until the last intersection point (
Pn) of the vector
V and the chromaticity discrimination ellipse with the color center at
Pn-1. In the
Fig. 2,
Pn = P2. The color vector of the
i-th intersection point
Pi is denoted as
Pi. We have
Pi+1 =
Pi +
siu, where
si is the length between
Pi and
Pi+1;
si = (
g11icos
2φ +
g12isin2φ +
g22isin
2φ)
-1/2. The parameters
g11i,
g12i and
g22i are the
g coefficients of the chromaticity discrimination ellipse with the color center at
Pi. The color difference calculated from
Qs to
Qt can be expressed as Δ
Ecd(
Qs,
Qt) =
n + Δ
s/
sn, where
n is the number of intersection points, Δ
s = |
Qt -
Pn|, and the term Δ
s /
sn counts the remaining color difference between
Pn and
Qt. If the color difference is sub-threshold,
n = 0.
Fig. 2 A diagram showing the calculation method of the color difference metric based on chromaticity discrimination ellipses. In practice, the axis lengths and orientation angles of neighboring chromaticity discrimination ellipses are nearly the same. The differences shown in the diagram are exaggerated.
The magnitudes of ΔEcd(Q1, Q2 ) may not be equal to ΔEcd(Q2, Q1) for the two color points Q1 and Q2 because the g coefficients of intersection points Pi are slightly different in calculating ΔEcd(Q1, Q2 ) and ΔEcd(Q2, Q1). Although the difference between ΔEcd(Q1, Q2 ) and ΔEcd(Q2, Q1) is much less than a unit and is negligible, we define the color difference between Q1 and Q2 as ΔEjnd = [ΔEcd(Q1, Q2 ) + ΔEcd(Q2, Q1)]/2 so that the definition is unambiguous. The subscript “jnd” of ΔEjnd emphasizes that its value is in fact the number of just noticeable differences between Q1 and Q2.
4. Discrimination ellipse color difference formula
The calculation method presented in the Section 3 is complicated. From the
Eq. (1), we may derive an approximate color difference formula in a similar form as CIEDE2000 for the two color points
Q1 and
Q2 that correspond to the color vector
Qi = (
a*
i,
b*
i) for
i = 1 and 2. Here Δ
a* =
a*
2-
a*
1, Δ
b* =
b*
2-
b*
1 in
Eq. (1). The two color vectors can also be represented in the chroma and hue coordinates as
Qi = (
C*
i,
h*
i) for
i = 1 and 2. Under the assumption that the hue angle difference Δ
h*<< 1, in which Δ
h* = ︱
h*
2-
h*
1︱ and Δ
h* is in unit of radian instead of degree, we have the color difference formula
where Δ
C* = |
C*
2-
C*
1|, Δ
H* =
C*
avgΔ
h*,
C*
avg = (
C*
1 +
C*
2)/2,
h*
avg = (
h*
1 +
h*
2)/2,
SC = (
g11cos
2h*
avg +
g12sin2
h*
avg +
g22sin
2h*
avg)
-1/2,
SH = (
g11sin
2h*
avg-
g12sin2
h*
avg +
g22cos
2h*
avg)
-1/2, and
RT = (
g22-
g11)sin2
h*
avg + 2
g12cos2
h*
avg. When either one of
Q1 and
Q2 lies at the origin, its hue angle is taken to be the same as that of the other color point, i.e., if
C*
1 = 0,
h*
1 =
h*
2; if
C*
2 = 0,
h*
2 =
h*
1. Because of the discontinuity of the hue angle across 360° to 0
o, if Δ
h* > π,
h*
avg = mod[180° + (
h*
1 +
h*
2)/2, 360°], Δ
H* =
C*
avg (2π-Δ
h*). The
g coefficients are calculated from the characteristic parameters
a,
b and
θ. The parameters are calculated by the
Eq. (3) with
C* and
h* replaced by the average chroma
C*
avg and the average hue angle
h*
avg, respectively. The subscript “
de” of Δ
Ede emphasizes that the color difference formula is derived from the discrimination ellipse equation.
Because the average chroma and average hue angle are used to calculate the characteristic parameters, the color difference between the two color points calculated by
Eq. (4) can be regarded as the color difference in unit of the size of the average chromaticity discrimination ellipse between them. We may call
Eq. (4) as the discrimination ellipse color difference formula.
5. Numerical examples and discussions
It requires a set of training ellipses to obtain the empirical formulas of the characteristic parameters
a,
b and
θ of a chromaticity discrimination ellipse by regression. A chromaticity discrimination ellipse depends on the parametric effects such as environment lighting, adapted white, and other measurement conditions. The dependences have not been experimentally and completely investigated in the state of the art. One may measure the chromaticity discrimination ellipses according to the application condition. As is described in Section 2, we take the 25 MacAdam ellipses shown in the
Fig. 1 as the training ellipses, although they do not well sample the color space. Reference [
5S. Wen and H.-J. Ma, Investigation of Chromaticity Discrimination Ellipses for Displays,” in Society for Information Display 2012 International Symposium Digest of Technical Papers (Society for Information Display, 2012), pp. 725–728.
] measured four chromaticity discrimination ellipses. Their color centers are the same as that of the MacAdam ellipses labeled from 1 to 4 shown in the
Fig. 1, which correspond to red, green, blue, and gray colors, respectively. The ratio of axis lengths
a/
b and the orientation angle of a measured chromaticity discrimination ellipse are about the same as that of the corresponding MacAdam ellipse. But the measured axis lengths
a and
b are longer than that of the corresponding MacAdam ellipses because of higher luminance level of environment lighting for the experiment in the Ref [
5S. Wen and H.-J. Ma, Investigation of Chromaticity Discrimination Ellipses for Displays,” in Society for Information Display 2012 International Symposium Digest of Technical Papers (Society for Information Display, 2012), pp. 725–728.
]. The increase factors of the measured axis lengths are about 3.1. Due to the calculation procedure of the ellipse parameters, about 68% of the color matchings made by the observer in the psychophysical experiment are expected to fall within the ellipse. The axis lengths increase with the color matching ratio. The desirable color matching ratio depends on applications. For designing a color-banding free display, the use of shorter axis lengths is desirable but may results in the increase of the required signal bit depth. The display performance and cost have to be compromised. In this section, all the 25 MacAdam ellipses with the axis lengths increased by a factor of 3.1 are taken as the training ellipses. If the MacAdam ellipses shown in the
Fig. 1 are considered to be the training ellipses, the enlargement factor of the training ellipses plotted in the
Fig. 1 is 10/3.1 = 3.226, which is the same as the enlargement factor of the CIEDE2000 ellipses plotted in the same figure.
Figures 3(a)
-
3(c) show the color differences Δ
Ede (thind data lines) and Δ
E00 (thick data lines) versus the hue angle
h* for the two colors with (
C*
1,
h*
1) = (
C*,
h*) and (
C*
2,
h*
2) = (
C* + Δ
C*,
h* + Δ
h*), where the cases with the chroma
C* = 20 (red data lines), 40 (green data lines) and 60 (blue data lines) are shown; Δ
C* and Δ
h* are the chroma and hue angle differences, respectively. The values of chroma are chosen for the better sampling of MacAdam ellipses over the corresponding color regions. The chroma and hue differences are Δ
C* = 2.5 and Δ
h* = 0° for the
Fig. 3(a); Δ
C* = 0 and Δ
h* = 2.5° for the
Fig. 3(b); Δ
C* = 2.5 and Δ
h* = 2.5° for the
Fig. 3(c). The values of Δ
C* and Δ
h* are chosen so that the calculated color differences are around threshold. The maximum relative differences between Δ
Ejnd and Δ
Ede are 0.051%, 0.055% and 0.076% for the cases shown in the
Figs. 3(a)-
3(c), respectively. Although the method shown in Section 3 is more accurate to represent the color difference based on the chromaticity discrimination ellipses, the use of the approximate formula,
Eq. (4), gives the satisfactory accuracy.
Fig. 3 Color differences ΔEde (thin data lines) and ΔE00 (thick data lines) versus hue angle h* for the two colors with (C*1, h*1) = (C*, h*) and (C*2, h*2) = (C* + ΔC*, h* + Δh*), where the chroma C* = 20 (red data lines), 40 (green data lines) and 60 (blue data lines); (a) ΔC* = 0, Δh* = 2.5°, (b) ΔC* = 2.5, Δh* = 0°, and (c) ΔC* = 2.5, Δh* = 2.5°.
The color difference decreases as the ellipse axis lengths a and b increase. For the same hue angle, the major and minor axis lengths of a CIEDE2000 ellipse increase with the chroma; the major axis length of a MacAdam ellipse also increases with the chroma, but its minor axis length decreases as the chroma increases in the blue region around the 270° hue angle. For the same chroma, the axis lengths of both the CIEDE2000 ellipse and MacAdam ellipse change with the hue angle, but the major axis length of a CIEDE2000 ellipse almost does not change with the hue angle outside the blue region and with the chroma larger than about 40.
As the orientation of an ellipse points away from the origin, the color differences due to the chroma difference and hue angle difference increases and decreases, respectively. The orientation of a CIEDE2000 ellipse points toward the origin except for the color region near the origin or the blue region around the 270° hue angle [
4M. R. Luo, G. Cui, and B. Rigg, “The development of the CIE 2000 colour-difference formula: CIEDE2000,” Color Res. Appl. 26(5), 340–350 (2001). [CrossRef]
]. The orientation of a MacAdam ellipse usually does not point toward the origin as is shown in the
Fig. 1.
From the
Fig. 3(a) that shows the cases with the small chroma difference, Δ
E00 slightly changes with the hue angle for the case with
C* = 20 and almost does not change with the hue angle for the cases with
C* = 40 and 60. Δ
Ede significantly changes with the hue angle. Δ
E00 decreases as the chroma increases. Δ
Ede also increases with the chroma except for the blue region around the 255° hue angle. From the
Fig. 1, as the chroma of a MacAdam ellipse increases in this blue region, its minor axis length decreases and its orientation points away from the origin; consequently, Δ
Ede increases with the chroma in this blue region in spite of the increase of the major axis length. There are two local maxima for Δ
Ede around the 10° and 255° hue angles. From the
Fig. 1, the orientations of the MacAdam ellipses around the two hue angles are almost perpendicular to the directions toward the origin; consequently, the color difference due to the chroma difference is larger around the two hue angles. The two colors cannot be visually discriminated for the case with Δ
Ede< 1 by definition. For the case with
C* = 60 shown in the
Fig. 3(a), Δ
Ede shows that the two colors can be discriminated for the hue angle between 339° and 49° in the red region and for the hue angle between 205° and 294° in the blue region, while CIEDE2000 cannot predict the chromaticity discrimination.
From the
Fig. 3(b) that shows the cases with the small hue difference, both Δ
E00 and Δ
Ede increase with the chroma because the Euclidian distance between the two color points on the
a*
b* plane increases with the chroma for the same hue angle difference. Both Δ
E00 and Δ
Ede significantly change with the hue angle and have the maxima in the blue region around the 290° hue angle. From the
Fig. 1, both the angle between the ellipse orientation and the direction toward the origin and the minor axis length of the MacAdam ellipse with
h*> 270
o are smaller than that of the MacAdam ellipse with
h*< 270
o. Therefore, the maximum Δ
Ede of the cases shown in the
Fig. 3(b) are around the hue angle larger than 270
o, while the maximum Δ
Ede of the cases shown in the
Fig. 3(a) are around the 255° hue angle.
The cases with the combined small differences in chroma and hue angle are shown in the
Fig. 3(c). The maxima Δ
Ede of the cases shown in the
Fig. 3(c) are around the 335° hue angle. There are the local maxima for Δ
E00 around the 75° hue angle, but there are the local minima for Δ
Ede around the same hue angle.