Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!eos!jbm
From: jbm@eos.UUCP (Jeffrey Mulligan)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: References sought on finding "closest match" to a color
Message-ID: <759@eos.UUCP>
Date: 23 May 88 18:38:04 GMT
References: <11076@jade.BBN.COM>
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, California
Lines: 26

From article <11076@jade.BBN.COM>, by mlandau@bbn.com (Matt Landau):
> I'm looking for references to techniques that do a resonable at finding
> the "closest" match to a desired color, given a pool of candidate colors
> from which to select.  
> 

If you want to minimize the perceived color difference, there are
a number of formulas which attempt to quantify color differences.
There are a number of different scales to choose from; a good review
is provided in chapter 6 of Wyszecki and Stiles, "Color Science,"
Wiley, 2nd ed. 1982.

These things are generally messy; for example in the Munsell
system, value (lightness) is defined implicitly in terms of
luminance (Y) in the following equation:

Y = 1.2219 V - 0.23111 V^2 + 0.23951 V^3 - 0.021009 V^4 + 0.0008404 V^5 .

For many applications a simpler approach such as the one you described
in your posting is probably good enough.

-- 

	Jeff Mulligan (jbm@ames-aurora.arpa)
	NASA/Ames Research Ctr., Mail Stop 239-3, Moffet Field CA, 94035
	(415) 694-5150