Color Quality Metrics Research Articles

Investigation of Colour Naturalness in Lighting: A Comparative Study

This paper is concerned with improving the acceptability of LED light sources, since their long life and high efficiency have contributed to their widespread adoption in many applications. Concerns remain, however, in relation to their colour properties. The purpose of this paper is therefore to promote discussion of the naturalness concept among the users, specifiers, and manufacturers of lighting sources and systems, in the hope that this may provide a valid pathway to the classification of light-source colour properties. An overview is presented of experimental investigations aimed at establishing visually meaningful metrics for the colour quality of various light sources, predominantly LEDs. All the cases presented here included colour naturalness as at least one of the dimensions studied, and one has to conclude that naturalness is a property of great interest to lighting engineers and scientists. Because the majority of naturalness studies have invoked the use of pre-existing colour quality metrics, the paper also includes an overview of some of the major such metrics and their features. The paper also identifies two important concerns relating to Naturalness: the need to agree on an acceptable definition of colour naturalness in lighting; and how to standardize or compare the results of disparate investigations. Finally, the paper proposes the concept of a colour fidelity continuum, in the ultimate hope of uniting the various approaches to lighting colour quality. Doi: 10.28991/HEF-2022-03-02-04 Full Text: PDF

Towards an optimum colour preference metric for white light sources: a comprehensive investigation based on empirical data.

Colour preference is a critical dimension for describing the colour quality of lighting and numerous metrics have been proposed. However, due to the variation amongst psychophysical studies, consensus has not been reached on the best approach to quantify colour preference. In this study, 25 typical colour quality metrics were comprehensively tested based on 39 groups of psychophysical data from 19 published visual studies. The experimental results showed that two combined metrics: the arithmetic mean of the gamut area index (GAI) and colour rendering index (CRI) and the colour quality index (CQI), a combination of the correlated colour temperature (CCT) and memory colour rendering index (MCRI), exhibit the best performance. Qp in the colour quality scale (CQS) and MCRI also performed well in visual experiments of constant CCT but failed when CCT varied, which highlights the dependence of certain metrics on contextual lighting conditions. In addition, it was found that some weighted combinations of an absolute gamut-based metric and a colour fidelity metric exhibited superior performance in colour preference prediction. Consistent with such a result, a novel metric named MCPI (colour preference index based on meta-analysis) was proposed by fitting the large psychophysical dataset, and this achieved a significantly higher weighted average correlation coefficient between metric predictions and subjective preference ratings.

Color discrimination metric based on the neutrality of lighting and hue transposition quantification.

In this Letter, we propose a combined metric for quantifying the color discrimination capability of white light sources. This metric is based on considerations of human visual adaptation to daylight chromaticities, as well as on the concerns of the huge spectral diversity of modern light sources. Two existing metrics, Sneutral (degree of neutrality) by Smet et al. [Opt. Express22, 25830 (2014)OPEXFF1094-408710.1364/OE.22.025830] and Rd (hue transposition among color samples of the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 Hue color vision test) by Esposito and Houser [Lighting Res. Technol.51, 5 (2019)LRTEA90024-342610.1177/1477153517729200] were adopted, and their weights were determined by a meta-analysis of five groups of psychophysical data on color discrimination. The superiority of the newly proposed metric was demonstrated by 16 groups of psychophysical data from eight color discrimination studies, as well as by a comparison with 29 typical color quality metrics and their linear combinations.

Impact of the adapted white point and the cultural background on memory color assessments

AbstractWith their inherent ability of serving as an internal reference, memory colors provide a very powerful concept in the evaluation of color rendering properties of white light sources with respect to visual appreciation. Recent results for example suggest fairly good correlations between memory‐based color quality metrics and the observers' general color preferences. However, due to technical limitations in the design of the underlying psychophysical experiments, they generally lack the explicit inclusion of realistic viewing and adaptation conditions, which is supposed to have a nonnegligible impact on the model prediction performance. In addition, intercultural effects might play a crucial role in the context of memory colors. For these reasons, the current article investigates the impact of both the adapted white point and the observers' cultural background on memory color assessments in order to contribute to a better understanding of these dependencies and their interactions. For this purpose, the color appearance rating results of Chinese and German observers were collected for a selection of 12 different familiar test objects assessed under two different adaptation conditions at 3200 K and 5600 K, respectively. From the statistical analysis of the experimental data, it is shown, in accordance to previous studies, that the impact of the observed intercultural deviations is likely to be of no practical importance even though significance is found. Despite considerably larger effect sizes, the same must be concluded for the two tested adaptation conditions.

Color quality evaluation of Chinese bronzeware in typical museum lighting.

A series of psychophysical experiments have been conducted to investigate the effect of light sources on the color appearance of Chinese bronzeware. Three groups of 30 observers were asked to evaluate a set of Chinese bronzeware under different light sources in three paired-comparison experiments-one group of observers for each experiment. The visual attributes of color preference, color comfort, color discrimination, and antiquity were scaled. A panel of seven light sources of 3000 K, with Duv values ranging from $ - {0}.{015}$-0.015 to 0.015, was used in Experiment 1. A second panel of seven light sources of 4000 K, with a similar range of Duv values, was used in Experiment 2. For Experiment 3, six light sources were chosen from Exps. 1 and 2, plus four lights of 2700 K, 3300 K, 3700 K, and 4300 K, with Duv values of zero. These experimental lights produced a constant illuminance of approximately 200 lux in a pair of viewing booths, and their color rendering indices were between 88 and 95. The results showed that the subjective judgments for color preference and color comfort were highly correlated while the whiteness of the lighting strongly influenced the perception of color preference, comfort, and discrimination. A light source of 4000 K with a Duv value of zero exhibited the best color preference and color comfort performance, while observers were found to show the greatest capability for color discrimination under a light source of 4000 K with a Duv value of $ - {0}.{015}$-0.015. In addition, the bronzeware appeared to have greatest antiquity when illuminated by a 3000 K light source with a Duv value equal to 0.005. Based on the psychophysical data, the performance of typical color quality metrics were also tested in relation to the four scaled visual attributes.

Color appearance rating of familiar real objects under immersive viewing conditions

AbstractWith the concept of memory colors being considered to play a crucial role for many imaging and lighting applications, the questions how people assess the color appearance of familiar objects and what kind of fundamental characteristics can be derived from these assessments have extensively been studied in the past. However, all of the previous studies, the authors of this article are aware of, lack in realistic viewing and adaptation conditions. In the attempt of overcoming these deficiencies, a new experiment investigating the impact of long‐term memory on the color appearance ratings of 12 familiar test objects was performed. The pooled observer data were modeled in CIECAM02 color space using bivariate Gaussian functions whose centroids define the corresponding memory color centers for each test object. Comparisons with previous results obtained by Smet et al. revealed no significant differences in the reported memory color centers, but showed distinct deviations in the covariance matrices defining the shape of the fitted distribution functions. It is supposed that this new set of functions will lead to significantly different results when being used for the construction of an updated memory‐based color quality metric.

Colour preference, naturalness, vividness and colour quality metrics, Part 5: A colour preference experiment at 2000 lx in a real room

Subjects rated the colour preference of a colourful object scene illuminated to 2000 lx by 28 different spectra from a four-channel LED light engine at different object saturation levels and different white points (3200 K, 4200 K, 5000 K and 5600 K). Mean colour preference ratings had a maximum at a moderate saturation level. The lowest correlated colour temperature (3200 K) exhibited lower preference ratings than the three higher correlated colour temperatures. The influence of saturation level was modelled by existing colour rendition measures and by the measure colour quality combining a colour fidelity index and an overall object colour object saturation measure taken from Part 4 of this work.

Toward a unified model for predicting color quality of light sources.

Considering that the existing color quality (CQ) metrics for light sources cannot correlate well with the subjective evaluation, in an immersive environment equipped with a multichannel LED light source, a psychophysical experiment by categorical judgment method was carried out to assess the three perception-related CQ attributes of light sources in terms of naturalness, colorfulness, and preference. The experiment collected the subjective responses to these attributes of up to 41 metameric spectra at each of four test correlated color temperatures (CCTs) ranging from 2800 to 6500K, which covers the usual white-light range for general lighting. The results indicate that preference exhibits relatively high correlation with naturalness and colorfulness, and naturalness is weakly related to colorfulness. Besides, 20 typical CQ metrics were adopted to examine their validity in characterizing the subjective data, confirming their limited performance. Meanwhile, the underlying relationship of these metrics and the subjective data was also analyzed by the multidimensional scaling, revealing that almost all metrics can correspond to one attribute of naturalness, colorfulness, and preference, and that the saturation level is identified as a critical factor affecting these attributes. Based on these results, a unified CQ model was developed with a multiple nonlinear regression equation combining the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America color rendition method. The model accords satisfactorily with the subjective evaluation, while being applicable to a wide range of CCTs.

Light dominates colour preference when correlated colour temperature differs

Colour preference for lighting is generally influenced by three kinds of contextual factors, the light, the object and the observer. In this study, a series of psychophysical experiments were conducted to investigate and compare the effect of certain factors on colour preference, including spectral power distribution of light, lighting application, observers’ personal colour preference, regional cultural difference and gender difference. LED lights with different correlated colour temperatures were used to illuminate a wide selection of objects. Participant response was quantified by a 7-point rating method or a 5-level ranking method. It was found that the preferred illumination for different objects exhibited a similar trend and that the influence of light was significantly stronger than that of other factors. Therefore, we conclude that the light itself (rather than, e.g. the objects that are viewed) is the most crucial factor for predicting which light, among several candidates with different correlated colour temperatures, an observer will prefer. In addition, some of the gamut-based colour quality metrics correlated well with the participants’ response, which corroborates the view that colour preference is strongly influenced by colour saturation. The familiarity of the object affects the ratings for each experiment while the colour of the objects also influences colour preference.

Colour preference, naturalness, vividness and colour quality metrics, Part 4: Experiments with still life arrangements at different correlated colour temperatures

Subjective colour preference, naturalness and vividness assessments of two different colourful still life arrangements viewed in a real room were analysed and modelled with the aid of the Rf colour fidelity metric combined with a chroma difference metric. Coloured objects were illuminated by a four-channel LED light engine with 36 different spectra at four correlated colour temperatures and nine object oversaturation levels. Results imply a significant dependence of the subjective judgments on correlated colour temperature.

Colour preference, naturalness, vividness and colour quality metrics, Part 3: Experiments with makeup products and analysis of the complete warm white dataset

Light source colour quality is a complex phenomenon with several visual and cognitive components. Subjective colour preference, naturalness and vividness assessments of reddish cosmetic products in a viewing booth lit by light sources with a correlated colour temperature of 3200 K and to 550 lx were analysed and modelled by a new combined colour quality formula – a linear combination of a colour fidelity index and a measure of chroma change. Results of the warm white light sources described in all three parts of this work were merged. They were modelled by optimising the parameters of the same formula. The formula supports multi-LED light sources with moderately accentuated local spectral maxima to enhance object chroma over a moderate range.

Colour preference, naturalness, vividness and colour quality metrics, Part 2: Experiments in a viewing booth and analysis of the combined dataset

In Part 2 of this work, observers scaled colour preference, naturalness and vividness visually on interval scales (0–100) labelled by semantic categories (e.g. ‘moderate’, ‘good’ and ‘very good’) in the context of food lighting using the same questionnaire as in Part 1. Seven multi-LED light sources with more or less object saturation effect illuminated a viewing booth with coloured food objects. The two datasets (Part 1: room + Part 2: viewing booth) were merged and the observers’ assessments were predicted by recent colour quality indices and CIELAB chroma differences. Linear combinations of selected pairs or triads of descriptors were used to predict the merged dataset. Criterion values to achieve ‘good’ preference, naturalness and vividness level were determined.

Colour preference, naturalness, vividness and colour quality metrics, Part 1: Experiments in a room

In Part I of this work, observers scaled colour preference, naturalness and vividness visually on interval scales (0–100) labelled by semantic categories (e.g. ‘moderate’, ‘good’ and ‘very good’) in the context of office lighting. Five customary light sources without object saturation effect illuminated a table with coloured objects in a real room. The observers’ assessments were predicted by recent colour quality indices and selected pairs of indices combined linearly. Criterion values of the indices for ‘good’ colour preference and vividness were determined to provide a usable acceptance limit for the spectral design and evaluation of light sources. To predict colour preference, correlated colour temperature turned out to be useful. In Part 2 of this work, another experiment with the same method but using multi-LED spectra with more object saturation will be analysed and the two datasets will be merged.

A numerical analysis of recent colour rendition metrics

The purpose of this paper is to show a possible way to move forward to a usable method for lighting practitioners to characterise and optimise the colour quality of white light sources for general interior lighting. First, correlations between recent colour rendition (colour quality) metrics are analysed. Second, linear and quadratic combinations of the two recently published Illuminating Engineering Society of North America metrics ( Rf and Rg) are suggested to approximate two selected visually relevant colour quality metrics, the Memory Colour Quality Index and the NIST Colour Quality Scale Qp index. Numeric values of the optimum coefficients of these ( Rf, Rg) combinations are provided for a comprehensive set of 546 light source spectral power distributions in two correlated colour temperature groups, warm white and cool white. The performance of the different combinations used to describe the metrics ranged between poor and good.

Color discrimination metric based on cone cell sensitivity.

Based on the cone cell sensitivity, a new metric defined as cone sensitivity difference (CSD) was proposed to describe the color discrimination property of a light source. We conducted experiments at mesopic condition to test the performance of the metric. A color temperature tunable poly-chromatic LED system consisted of 7 single-color LEDs was utilized in the experiments. The performance of the metric was assessed by computing the Spearman and Pearson correlation coefficients with the observers' ratings of color discrimination obtained from the experiments. Several conventional color quality metrics, including R_a, color quality scale (Q_a), gamut area scale (Q_g) and color-discrimination index (CDI), were also evaluated with respect to color discrimination by correlation analyses. Among the selected metrics, Q_g had the best Spearman and Pearson correlation coefficients with the observers' ratings for most of the correlated color temperatures (CCTs). The newly proposed CSD was highly (p<0.01) correlated with Q_g, and its correlation with the observers' ratings increased at the higher CCTs. For CCT above 5000K, CSD had significant Pearson correlation coefficients with the observers' ratings. There was a possibility that CSD would be qualified to describe color discrimination with further optimization.

A study of preferred colour rendering of light sources: Shop lighting

This paper provides recommendations for optimum LED light spectra in shop environments. The main aspects of the research were to elaborate the optimal LED spectral power distribution for the lighting of different colour textiles, fruits and vegetables, meat and bakery products. The spectrum was tailored towards different colour quality metrics such as the colour rendering index and the colour quality scale. Small scale investigations with eye-tracker studies were carried out by Osram Opto Semiconductors at the University of Regensburg and full scale experiments were conducted at the University of Pannonia during the project in order to determine which metric correlates best to the preference of the observers. Results of the psychophysical have been evaluated with the help of analytic hierarchy process and a modified Thurstone method. As a result of the investigation, optimal spectral power distributions for shop environment are described.

Perceived Image Color Quality Metric of Mobile Display by Using Displayed Image Analysis

Perceived Image Color Quality Metric of Mobile Display by Using Displayed Image Analysis

Subjective preferences and colour quality metrics of LED light sources

To understand people's judgement of the naturalness of object colours and preference for the lit environment, lighting booth experiments were conducted. Seven different LED spectral power distributions, all at correlated colour temperatures of 2700 K, 4000 K and 6500 K, were simulated for high CIE colour rendering index (Ra), high colour quality scale (CQS) colour preference scale (Qp) keeping Ra = 80, high feeling of contrast index (FCI) keeping Ra = 80, high CQS relative gamut area scale (Qg) keeping Ra = 80, low FCI keeping Ra = 80, low Qp keeping Ra = 80, and for a mimic of a fluorescent lamp (FL) in terms of the closest possible value of the Ra, FCI and Qp to the reference FL. Other metrics such as the gamut area index (GAI), memory CRI, and nCRI were also considered in the analysis. Sixty observers evaluated 24 lighting situations. This paper deals with a comparison evaluation, where LED lighting was compared to FL lighting. It was found that Ra does not explain the subjective naturalness of objects and the subjective preference of the lit environment for the different light sources. The results also indicate that people's judgement of naturalness and overall preference were explained better when a reference-based metric (such as Qp) and an area or volume-based metric (such as Qg or GAI) were both considered while maintaining the light source chromaticity difference (Duv) value within the limit ± 0.0054.

Spatial Brightness Perception of Trichromatic Stimuli

An experiment was conducted to examine the effect of tuning optical radiation on brightness perception for younger (18–25 years of age) and older (50 years of age or older) observers. Participants made forced-choice evaluations of the brightness of a full factorial of stimulus pairs selected from two groups of four metameric stimuli The large-field stimuli were created by systematically varying either the red or the blue primary of an RGB LED mixture. The results indicate that light stimuli of equal illuminance and chromaticity do not appear equally bright to either younger or older subjects. The rank-order of brightness is not predicted by current models of human vision or theories of brightness perception including scotopic to photopic or cirtopic to photopic ratio theory, prime color theory, correlated color temperature, V(λ)-based photometry, color quality metrics, linear brightness models, or color appearance models. Age may affect brightness perception when short-wavelength primaries are used, especially those with apeak wavelength shorter than 450 nm. The results suggest the need for the further development of a metric (or metrics) to predict brightness perception and that age should be included as a variable in such models.

Correlation between color quality metric predictions and visual appreciation of light sources

Over the past years there has been increasing evidence that the CIE color rendering index R(a) fails to correspond to the perceived color quality of many light sources, especially some Light-Emitting-Diodes. Several proposals to update, complement or even replace the CIE R(a) have therefore been made. The performance of thirteen color quality metrics was evaluated by calculating the average correlation of the metric predictions with the visual scaling of the perceived color quality obtained in several psychophysical studies. Two aspects of perceived color quality were investigated, appreciation (preference or attractiveness) and naturalness. The memory color quality metric (S(a)) of Smet et al. was found to correlate highly with perceived appreciation (r = 0.88). It was found to be statistically better (p<0.0001) at it than all other metrics. The CIE R(a) performed the worst. A metric that combines the gamut area index (GAI) and the CIE R(a) using an arithmetic mean correlated highly with the perceived naturalness of a light source (r = 0.85). It was found to be statistically better at predicting naturalness than all other metrics (p<0.0001). A negative correlation was found, between the capabilities of a light source's ability to predict appreciation and naturalness, indicating that a complete description of the color quality of a light source probably requires more than one metric.