Development and evaluation of perceptually adapted colour gradients

Abstract

In this study a set of colour gradients based on colour visual perception, which use International Commission on Illumination (CIE) L*a*b* colour space, is presented. The main objective is the study of how the colour difference equations, developed by CIE, affect the estimation of the gradients in terms of correlation with colour visual perception. To evaluate the gradients performance they are used as the basis of an edge detector based on levelset. A set of synthetic images was designed to evaluate which edge detector and consequently, which colour difference equation, is more correlated with human perception of colour. Both quantitative and qualitative measurements showed that the results obtained using CIE94 have a higher correlation with what the human eye can perceive. © The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2013.