Light & Colour

Rob Scharein

EECE478 – Introduction to Computer Graphics

6 February 2002
Properties of light
• electromagnetic radiation with wavelength between 400nm and
700nm
Properties of light (cont.)
• travels in straight lines unless an interface between two media is
encountered (demo)
• Law of reflection — angle of incidence equals angle of reflection
• Law of refraction (Snell’s Law) — angle of incidence, θ1, is related
to angle of refraction, θ2 , by the equation

n1 sin(θ1 ) = n2 sin(θ2 )

at an interface between media with indices of refraction n1 and n2

• speed of light in a vacuum is defined to be exactly 299,792,458 m/s
(meter defined in terms of speed of light and the second)
• colour is not a physical property of light
Measurement of light
• need to distiguish between radiometric and photometric units
radiometric — measured over entire electromagnetic spectrum
units are: joule watt
photometric — only measured over visible spectrum (from 400 nm
to 700 nm)
units are: talbot lumen candela lux
Light sources
Common light sources differ in the kind of spectrum they emit. There
are two main types of spectra, continuous and line.

continuous spectra — energy is emitted at a wide range of wavelengths

Examples:

• blackbody radiation (demo)

• tungsten light bulbs
• some fluorescent lamps
• sunlight
• electrical arcs (demo)
The Solar Spectrum
Light sources (cont.)
line spectra — energy is emitted at only a discrete set of wavelengths

Examples:

• ionized gases
• lasers
• some fluorescent lamps
hydrogen

helium

oxygen

nitrogen

neon

argon

krypton
 carbon

sodium

iron

silicon

magnesium

sulfur

calcium
Structure of the human eye
• eye is basically a camera, with some important differences
• cones are concentrated around fovea
• rods are more sensitive to light than cones
• peak sensitivity at different wavelengths
Colour theory — perceptual terms
Hue — distinguishes amoung colours such as red, green, yellow, or
purple
Saturation — refers to how far a colour is from a gray of equal intensity
• red vs. pink
• pastels relatively unsaturated
• vivid colours are highly saturated (red laser pointer
• white, gray, and black are unsaturated
Lightness — perceived intensity of a reflecting (or emitting) object
Colour theory — colorimetric terms
Objective, quantitative, way of specifying colours is a branch of physics
known as colorimetry.

Dominant wavelength — The wavelength that a light source emits most

of its energy
Excitation purity — Relative amounts of energy emitted at the
dominant wavelength compared to the rest of the spectrum
Luminance — Amount, or intensity of the light
Perceptual term Colorimetric term

Hue Dominant wavelength

Saturation Excitation purity
Lightness (reflecting objects) Luminance
Brightness (self-luminous objects) Luminance
Tristimulus theory of colour vision
• Although a light source can have a very complex spectral
distribution, it was found empirically (first by artists, then by
Helmholtz & Young) that all colours could be described using only
three parameters.
• Colours that “look” the same but have different spectral energy
distributions are called metamers.
• Experimentally verified only recently that this is related to the fact
there are three types of cones in the human eye (for most people).