CS3500

Computer Graphics
Module: Colours etc.

P. J. Narayanan
Spring 2005

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Story so far ...

3D Graphics involves projecting the 3D world to the 2D
image plane of the camera.
Involves a series of rigid transformations.
Complex objects/environments are described in their own
coordinate systems. Modelling places them in a world
coordinate system. This could involve a hierarchy of
transforms for objects made up of complex parts.
View Orientation computes the world in the VRC. This
gives the relative geometry of the world with respect to
the camera.
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Camera can be perspective or parallel, defined by 6

planes.
View Mapping or Normalizing Transformation maps
VRC to an orthographic canonical view volume. Different
for parallel and perspective cameras.
Projection is easy to perform here. An image with
dimensions from -1 to +1 results.
Viewport transformation scales and translates in 2D to
map to window coordinates (or frame buffer address).
Points of 3D primitives map to points of 2D primitives.
Scan-convert using standard algorithms.
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Rendering Pipeline

View View
Modelling Clipping Viewport
Orientation Mapping
Object World Camera Canonical Normalized Screen
Coords Coords Coords View Volume 2D Coords Coords

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What after scan conversion?

What do we write into the frame-buffer after identifying
which pixels belong to a primitive?

The colour and intensity!

Colour represented using Red, Green, and Blue. Why?

What about black/white/gray level?

What are the basics we need to know to design a good

Graphics system/application?

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Light
Light can be two types: Achromatic (without colour) or
Chromatic (coloured)

White (and gray) light contains all wavelengths. Coloured

light has a dominant wavelength.

White light can be split into VIBGYOR components by

passing through a prism.

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Visible Spectrum
Visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum is what
we are interested in.

From about 400nm (Violet) to 700nm (Red).

Human sensitivity (luminous efficiency) is different for

different wavelengths: Peak is around 550nm (Green).

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Some Terms
Radiance: Light energy emitted by the source.

Luminance: Light energy that reaches the sensor.

Brightness: Perceived intensity or energy.

Lightness: Perceived intensity or energy of a reflecting

object.

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A Monochrome Display System

Number of different intensities: n+1 (say, 256).

: lowest intensity to be displayed. Highest is 1.0 = .



Human eye is sensitive to intensity ratios (logarithmic

response). (i.e, to is same as to ).












Thus, . Thus, .









 





Intensities for each level (index): .





 






. Or, .






















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CRT Monitor and Gamma Correction

Dynamic range ( ) is between 40 and 200. For






and , , and .

















CRT’s response is non-linear. , : #electrons






, the voltage. Thus, and .









for CRTs. needn’t double to double !







 

For each index , supply to the CRT.






For a given , round . .





 













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How Many Intensity Levels?

Successive levels should be continuous, without edges.

From experiments, this means: . So use .








. Therefore , .




















The edges between levels not visible if this is satisfied.
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Typical values for different media (dynRange) :

CRT (50-200) 400-530 Prints (100) 465
Slides (1000) 700 Coated paper (100) 465
Newspaper (10) 234

In practice, fewer will suffice due to ink/light smearing.

256 levels have become a standard because it is good

enough and convenient for byte-oriented computers!!

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Halftone Approximations
Use spatial integration to simulate intensity levels on
bilevel display/hardcopy devices.
Halftoning (clustered-dot ordered dither): Print with
blackness in a small resolution unit.





levels using pixels. (5 levels with pixels)













Dither Matrix: turn on pixels to display blackness .








A dither matrix:















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Basics of colour
A bulb appears red if it emits light of in the red range.
A flower appears yellow because it absorbs light of all
wavelengths except in the yellow range.
Pure colours have a particular . Mixed colours have light
of different wavelengths.
Different perceptual colours have different spectral
energy distributions.
Different spectral distributions might “look” the same!
(Called metamers).
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Description of colour
Colour perception in terms of: Hue, Saturation, Value.

Hue: Pure colour or dominant wavelength.

Saturation: How far from white/gray or excitation purity.

Value/Intensity; The intensity/brighness or luminance.

In artists language: Mix black to a pure color to get its

shades. Mix white to get its tints. Mix black and white to
get grays. Mix all three to get tones.
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V
G Y

W
C R

B M

H
B S
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Human Colour Perception

Our retina has rods and cones. Rods see gray levels an
cones see colour.

Our retina has 3 types of cones: Red, Green, and Blue.

Their spectral responses respectively peak approximately

at 580nm, 545nm, and 440nm.

Luminous efficiency (to constant luminance light) of the

eye is a bell-shaped curve with a peak at about 550 nm.
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Tristimulus Theory
All perceivable colours can be specified as weighted
combination of primary colours R, G, and B.

RGB define a set of basis vectors. Mix them in different

measures to get any colour.

Attractive, because a compact representation is possible.

Problem reduces to: Find the values of R, G, B to produce

a given perceptual colour.

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Colour Matching
Computing the weights of R, G, B for a given colour.
Colour Matching Functions: distribution of weights for
RGB to match a given wavelength.
Unfortunately, has negative R
B
values for red in the G
450-550nm range.
Negative values are not
0
convenient for a device like
CRT, which can’t “take away” red.

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CIE XYZ Colour Model

A model called XYZ was standardized by the CIE in 1931.

All colour-matching functions are positive for them.

Colour-matching function of Y was designed to match the

luminous efficiency function of the eye.
Colour .








Chromaticity values defined by  . Obtained by




dividing by their sum. Thus, .










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CIE Chromaticity Diagram

A tongue-shaped diagram with pure colours along the

periphery. (CIE space cut by the plane).






Line between two colours obtained by mixing them.

“‘White” point lies close to .








Extend the line from white to any colour to the periphery.
Hue is the point on periphery and Saturation is the ratio
of distances from white to colour and peripheral point.

Complementary Colours: Mix to form white.

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RGB Colour Model

Called the Additive Primaries.

Colour Cube: R+G = Yellow, R+B = Magenta,

G+B = Cyan, R+G+B = White, all zero gives Black.

Popular in graphics, as it is relevant for CRT Monitors.

Commonly, values are normalized to the range .










Grays lie along the diagonal from (0, 0, 0) to (1, 1, 1).
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B C

M W
B
G
R
Y

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CMY(K) Colour Model

Called the Subtractive Primaries.

Colour Cube: C+M = Blue, C+Y = Green,

M+Y = Red, C+M+Y = Black, all zero gives White.

Subtract RGB from 1.0, you get CMY, respectively.

Since black is common, is taken out as








black or K component. Yields the CMYK colour model
used in the 4-colour printing process.

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Interpolating in Colour Space

Simple, affine, transformation matrices between RGB,
CMY, YIQ, YUV, spaces.

Lines in one colour space map to corresponding lines in

the other space.

Thus, colour interpolation can be performed in any space.

Lines in RGB space map to something else in HSV space.

Interpolating HSV values is not valid.

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Colour in Computer Graphics

Tasteful use is mandated. Overuse and arbitrary use take
away from the message.

Golden rule: Less the better!.

Colour can effectively enhance the message.

Perceptual distance between colours is not the same as

the RGB distance!

Blues appear far and reds near. Unwise to use red for
background and blue for foreground.
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End of Class 18

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