Color-signal filtering in the Fourier-frequency domain.

Abstract

We have analyzed the Fourier-frequency content of spectral power distributions deriving from three types of illuminants (daylight, incandescent, and fluorescent) and the color signals from both biochrome and nonbiochrome surfaces lit by these illuminants. As far as daylight and the incandescent illuminant are concerned, after filtering the signals through parabolic (low-pass) filters in the Fourier-frequency domain and then reconstructing them, we found that most of the spectral information was contained below 0.016 c/nm. When fluorescent illuminants were involved, we were unable to recover either the original illuminants or color signals to any satisfactory degree. We also used the spectral modulation sensitivity function, which is related to the human visual system's color discrimination thresholds, as a Fourier-frequency filter and obtained consistently less reliable results than with low-pass filtering. We provide comparative results for daylight signals recovered by three different methods. We found reconstructions based on linear models to be the most effective.