JOMO KENYATTA UNIVERSITY

OF
AGRICULTURE & TECHNOLOGY
JKUAT SODeL

SCHOOL OF OPEN, DISTANCE AND eLEARNING

P.O. Box 62000, 00200
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Nairobi, Kenya
E-mail: [email protected]

ICS 2311 Computer Graphics

JJ II LAST REVISION ON October 16, 2014

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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
This presentation is intended to covered within one week.
The notes, examples and exercises should be supple-
mented with a good textbook. Most of the exercises have
solutions/answers appearing elsewhere and accessible by
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clicking the green Exercise tag. To move back to the same

page click the same tag appearing at the end of the solu-
tion/answer.
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Errors and omissions in these notes are entirely the re-

sponsibility of the author who should only be contacted
through the Department of Curricula & Delivery
(SODeL) and suggested corrections may be e-mailed to
[email protected].
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
LESSON 3
Color Representation

3.1. introduction
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• Color is visible light between 400nm and 700nm.

• Visible light frequencies range between ...
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– Red = 4.3 x 1014 hertz (700nm)

– Violet = 7.5 x 1014 hertz (400nm)
• Humans have trichromatic color vision
– Three color values

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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
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In the eye we have just three distinct ’cone’ cells for detecting
light energy.
These respond to a band of wavelength centered around red
(600), green (560) and blue (440); respectively.
The bands overlap, so, for example green light excites all
three types.
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The consequence of this is that each type of cell may be
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
excited similarly from very different energy distributions
Any distribution of wavelengths will be perceived by us as a
single color, but two entirely different distributions of intensities
could be perceived as the same color.
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In order to match a color, we can adjust the brightness of 3

overlapping primaries until the two colors look the same.
• C = color to be matched
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• RGB = laser sources (R=700nm, G=546nm, B=435nm)

Selecting three pure light sources (R, G, B) and mixing them
together while varying their respective intensities, one may be
able to create a large number of colors.
Each color satisfies the following linear combination:
JJ II • X = r*R + g*G + b*B
J I where r, g, b are intensities of the red, green and blue light
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
sources. Not all colors can be matched in this way.However, by
adding one of the pure colors to an unknown unmatchable color,
we can make a match.
This is in effect subtracting a color from the mix.
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• X + r*R = g*G + b*B

• or X + g*G = r*R + b*B
• or X + b*B = r*R + g*G
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The representation of colors as a mixture of three components

is called the tri-stimulus representation; very commonly used in
monitors and other active color devices. The pure colors used are
red, green and blue, and are referred to as the additive primary
colors.
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
3.1.1. Specifying Color:
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
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©2014

The human eye can distinguish hundreds of thousands of

JJ II different colors.
J I When two colors differ only in hue, the wavelength between
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
just noticeably different colors varies with the wavelength!
More than 10 nm at the extremes of the spectrum
Less than 2 nm around blue and yellow
Most JND hues are within 4 nm.
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Altogether, the eye can distinguish about 128 fully saturated

hues
Human eyes are less sensitive to hue changes in less saturated
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light (not a surprise)

3.1.2. Complementary colors:

White represents the presence of all three colors – in equal quan-
tities. Black represents the absence of the three colors. Two
JJ II colors are said to be complementary if their mix gives white. A
J I color can be generated by either:
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
• Adding the primary colors – R, G, and B
• Removing their complimentary colors.

3.1.3. The additive color model:

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• Red, green and blue are the additive primaries.

• Colors can be generated by adding the additive primaries
to black.
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• This is referred to as the additive color model.

3.1.4. The subtractive color model:

• Primaries – cyan, magenta and yellow. Also called the
CMY model.
JJ II • Colors are generated by subtracting the three primaries
J I from other colors.
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
3.1.5. The CIE Chromaticity:
• Represents colors in terms of three new primaries: x, Y
and Z Basically an additive scheme.
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3.1.6. Practical Colour Displays:

When a transformation is necessary from the CIE standard colour
chart to the colour produced on a specific display device, we
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must express the primary colours of the display device by x and

y quantities.
Good quality monitors will be calibrated for the CIE colour
chart.

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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
Revision Questions

Example . identify any 3 quantities of color perception

Solution:
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hue
saturation
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lightness/brightness


Exercise 1.  ...

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