How Strong Metamerism Disturbs Color Spaces

Systems for arranging and describing color include “color spaces” and “color order systems.” In a color space, tristimulus values R, G, and B are computable for every light (every point in the space). In familiar color spaces, such computation makes use of three functions of wavelength (the color-matching functions that define one of the CIE Standard Observers), one function corresponding to each of R, G, and B. In the presence of strong metamerism (marked spectral difference between the spectral power distributions of a pair of visually matching lights), the color-matching functions may report that one light of the pair has an entirely different color from that of the other member of the visually matching pair of lights. The CIE Standard Observer embodying those color-matching functions “sees” the two visually matching lights as entirely different in color, that is, it reports entirely different sets of R, G, and B for the two visually matching lights, and, thus, an entirely different chromaticity. In an example given here, each of the CIE Standard Observers assigns a strong green color to lights that are seen by normal human observers as a visual match to a hueless reference white. On the other hand, color order systems comprising sets of real objects in a specified illuminant, and which are assembled (visually arranged) by normal observers, as are the Munsell and OSA sets, do not suffer from the type of trouble discussed here. Color spaces depending on mathematical functions of R, G, and B are at risk: both Standard Observers are shown to plot visually identical lights at widely varying points in familiar color spaces (e.g., delta E*ab 5 40–50).© 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Col Res Appl, 23, 402–407, 1998