Luminosity function

For the luminosity function in astronomy, see Luminosity 1 Details

function (astronomy).
The luminosity function or luminous eciency func- There are two luminosity functions in common use. For
everyday light levels, the photopic luminosity function
best approximates the response of the human eye. For
low light levels, the response of the human eye changes,
and the scotopic curve applies. The photopic curve is the
CIE standard curve used in the CIE 1931 color space.
The luminous ux (or visible energy) in a light source is
dened by the photopic luminosity function. The following equation calculates the total luminous ux in a source
of light.

F = 683.002 lm/W

y()J()d
0

where

Photopic (black) and scotopic (green) luminosity functions.[c 1]

The photopic includes the CIE 1931 standard[c 2] (solid), the
JuddVos 1978 modied data[c 3] (dashed), and the Sharpe,
Stockman, Jagla & Jgle 2005 data[c 4] (dotted). The horizontal
axis is wavelength in nm.

F is the luminous ux in lumens,

J() is the spectral power distribution of the
radiation (power per unit wavelength), in watts
per meter.
y() (also known as V () ) is the standard luminosity function (which is dimensionless).
is wavelength in meters.

Formally, the integral is the inner product of the luminosity function with the light spectrum.[1] In practice, the
integral is replaced by a sum over discrete wavelengths
for which tabulated values of the luminosity function are
available. The CIE distributes standard tables with luminosity function values at 5 nm intervals from 380 nm to
tion describes the average spectral sensitivity of human 780 nm.[cie 1]
visual perception of brightness. It is based on subjective The standard luminosity function is normalized to a peak
judgements of which of a pair of dierent-colored lights value of unity at 555 nm (see luminous coecient). The
is brighter, to describe relative sensitivity to light of dif- value of the constant in front of the integral is usually
ferent wavelengths. It should not be considered perfectly rounded o to 683 lm/W. The small excess fractional
accurate in every case, but it is a very good representation value comes from the slight mismatch between the deof visual sensitivity of the human eye and it is valuable as nition of the lumen and the peak of the luminosity funca baseline for experimental purposes.
tion. The lumen is dened to be unity for a radiant energy
The CIE luminosity function y() or V () is a standard
function established by the Commission Internationale de
l'clairage (CIE) and may be used to convert radiant energy into luminous (i.e., visible) energy. It also forms
the central color matching function in the CIE 1931 color
space.

of 1/683 watt at a frequency of 540 THz, which corresponds to a standard air wavelength of 555.016 nm rather
than 555 nm, which is the peak of the luminosity curve.
The value of y() is 0.999997 at 555.016 nm, so that
a value of 683/0.999997 = 683.002 is the multiplicative
constant.[2] The number 683 is connected to the modern
1

(1979) denition of the candela, the unit of luminous intensity.[cie 2] This arbitrary number made the new denition give numbers equivalent to those from the old denition of the candela.

REFERENCES

peak of the eyes response is shifted toward the shortwave part of the spectrum (approximately 540 nm), while
for people suering deuteranopia, there is a slight shift in
the peak of the spectrum, to about 560 nm.[9] People with
protanopia have essentially no sensitivity to light of wavelengths more than 670 nm.

Improvements to the standard

Most mammals other than primates have the same luminosity function as people with protanopia. This makes it
possible to study the nocturnal life of animals by illumi[cie 3]
The CIE 1924 photopic V () luminosity function,
scene with long-wavelength red light that they
which is included in the CIE 1931 color-matching func- nating the[10]
can't
see.
tions as the y function, has long been acknowledged to
underestimate the contribution of the blue end of the For older people with normal color vision, the crystalline
spectrum to perceived luminance. There have been nu- lens may become slightly yellow due to cataracts, which
merous attempts to improve the standard function, to moves the maximum of sensitivity to the red part of
make it more representative of human vision. Judd in the spectrum and narrows the range of perceived wave1951,[3] improved by Vos in 1978,[4] resulted in a func- lengths.
tion known as CIE VM () .[5] More recently, Sharpe,
Stockman, Jagla & Jgle (2005) developed a function
consistent with the Stockman & Sharpe cone fundamen- 5 See also
tals;[6] their curves are plotted in the gure above.
A-weighting, the sound equivalent

Scotopic luminosity

For very low levels of intensity (scotopic vision), the sensitivity of the eye is mediated by rods, not cones, and
shifts toward the violet, peaking around 507 nm for young
eyes; the sensitivity is equivalent to 1699 lm/W[7] or 1700
lm/W[8] at this peak.
The standard scotopic luminosity function or V () was
adopted by the CIE in 1951, based on measurements by
Wald (1945) and by Crawford (1949).

Color blindness

Apparent brightness
Color vision
Quantum eciency, the image sensor equivalent

6 References
[1] Charles A. Poynton (2003). Digital Video and HDTV:
Algorithms and Interfaces. Morgan Kaufmann. ISBN 155860-792-7.
[2] Wyszecki, Gnter and Stiles, W.S. (2000). Color Science
- Concepts and Methods, Quantitative Data and Formulae
(2nd ed.). Wiley-Interscience. ISBN 0-471-39918-3.
[3] Judd, Deane B. and Wyszecki, Gnter (1975). Color in
Business, Science and Industry (3rd ed.). John Wiley.
ISBN 0-471-45212-2.
[4] Vos, J. J. (1978).
Colorimetric and photometric properties of a 2 fundamental observer.
Color Research and Application 3 (3): 125128.
doi:10.1002/col.5080030309.
[5] Stiles, W. S.; Burch, J. M. (1955). Interim report
to the Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage Zurich
1955, on the National Physical Laboratorys investigation of colour-matching. Optica Acta 2 (4): 168181.
Bibcode:1955AcOpt...2..168S. doi:10.1080/713821039.

Protanopic (green) and deuteranopic (red) luminosity

functions.[9] For comparison, the standard photopic curve
is shown in yellow.

[6] Sharpe, L. T.; Stockman, A.; Jagla, W.; Jgle, H.

(2005). A luminous eciency function, V*(), for daylight adaptation. Journal of Vision 5 (11): 948968.
doi:10.1167/5.11.3.

Color blindness changes the sensitivity of the eye as a

function of wavelength. For people with protanopia, the

[7] Kohei Narisada; Duco Schreuder (2004). Light Pollution

Handbook. Springer. ISBN 1-4020-2665-X.

[8] Casimer DeCusatis (1998). Handbook of Applied Photometry. Springer. ISBN 1-56396-416-3.
[9] Judd, Deane B. (1979). Contributions to Color Science.
Washington D.C. 20234: NBS. p. 316.
[10] I. S. McLennan & J. Taylor-Jes (2004). The use of
sodium lamps to brightly illuminate mouse houses during their dark phases. Laboratory Animals 38: 384392.
doi:10.1258/0023677041958927. PMID 15479553.

6.1

CIE documents

[1] CIE Free Documents for Download.

[2] 16th Confrence gnrale des poids et mesures Resolution
3, CR, 100 (1979), and Metrologia, 16, 56 (1980).
[3] CIE (1926). Commission internationale de l'Eclairage proceedings, 1924. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

6.2

Curve data

[1] CIE Scotopic luminosity curve (1951)". Archived from

the original on 2008-12-28.
[2] CIE (1931) 2-deg color matching functions. Archived
from the original on 2008-12-28.
[3] JuddVos modied CIE 2-deg photopic luminosity curve
(1978)". Archived from the original on 2008-12-28.
[4] Sharpe, Stockman, Jagla & Jgle (2005) 2-deg V*(l) luminous eciency function. Archived from the original
on 2007-09-27.

External links
Color and Research Vision Laboratory - luminous
eciency data tables

8 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

8.1

Text

Luminosity function Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminosity_function?oldid=631743664 Contributors: Bryan Derksen, Phil

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8.2

Images

File:Luminosity.png Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Luminosity.png License: Public domain Contributors: Transferred from en.wikipedia; transfer was stated to be made by User:Ashishbhatnagar72. Original artist: Original uploader was
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