Abstract

Both vision scientists and industrial colorimetrists have proposed mathematical formulas that will predict the perceptibility of the difference between two color stimuli when each stimulus is defined by its CIE color coordinates. In 1976, in an attempt to unify practice, the international Commission on Illumination (CIE) recommended the use of two such color-difference formulas, known as CIELAB and CIELUV. Since then several new formulas have been proposed, some based on color-vision theories and some on industrial color-matching data. With enough free parameters, any set of data can be described fairly accurately, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the various published sets of data on color discrimination are incompatible with each other for reasons that are not yet understood.

© 1985 Optical Society of America