Issues of Color in Media Technology
This seminar covers the technical aspects of color for use in
practical applications of Media Technology. Color is discussed from
three distinct points of view: human vision, visual processing and
digital displays. Topics include the production of color, physiology
and psychophysiology of color, the sensation of color, color systems,
coding and processing, color vision, rendering in graphics
environments, color as an interface, semantics and aesthetics of
color.
Instructor:
Walter Bender (walter@media.mit.edu) x3-7331, E15-328
TA:
Joey Berzowska (joey@media.mit.edu) x3-0312, E15-355
Course Adminitrator: Felice Napolitano (felice@media.mit.edu)
Objective
This course encourages students to experientially explore the
relationships between sensory stimulus, color appearance, and the
relationships of color appearance as a means to develop more effective
color communication tools.
Approach
To aid students in their pursuit, the course consists of hands on
exploration of questions that point to the critical scientific and
technological challenges of color and hands on attempt to pursue
personal exploration of a model for color communication.
Organization
Generally each class will begin with discussion of research other
people have done on the same topic as last week's exploration
topic. This discussion may include visits by some of the researchers
or by authors who have written on the subject. The intent is to
encourage you to explore a subject before you read about it; hence you
will be experimenting before you read the suggested references. This
approach tends to avoid biasing your own interpretations of what might
be going on and provides you with your own base of experience to which
you can relate when you read other people's research on the subject of
interest. The second class activity will be an exploration of this
week's class goal.
Requirements
Weekly JAVA programming or painting assignment and reading, as well as an individual or group term project. Classes will consist of a weekly group experiment, brief lecture, and discussion.
There will be occasional guest lectures by leading color researchers.
Course Outline
- class 1 goal: radiation
- class 2 goal: color matching (colorimetry)
- class 3 goal: spatial and temporal relationships of radiation (color appearance)
- class 4 goal: the visual pathway 1 (the eye)
- class 5 goal: the visual pathway 2 (the mind)
- class 6 goal: experiencing color order
- class 7 goal: color order systems
- class 8 goal: color communication
- class 9 goal: color quantization
- class 10 goal: color reproduction
- class 11 goal: experiencing expressive color
- class 12 goal: affective color
- class 13 goal: personal project review
- class 14 goal: course review
Grading
50% of your grade is based on class participation in the experiential
exploration of questions pointing to critical challenges. The focus is
on acquiring personal experience to which you can relate at some
future date when reading other people's research or when attempting to
address a challenge in this field.
25% of your grade will be for a project that might add insight to an
effective color model with stated objectives. The intent is to offer
you the opportunity to pursue something personally meaningful while
having access to a group of people (classmates, teacher, visiting
lecturers) who are addressing the same fundamental problem.
25% of your grade is dependent upon biweekly problems.
Suggested Reading
- Basic Color Terms, B. Berlin and P. Kay
- Color Perception in Art, F. Birren
- The Principles of Harmony and Contrasts of Colors, M. E. Chevreul
- Raster Graphics Handbook, Conrac
- An Introduction to Color, R. Evans
- Theory of Colours, J. W. von Goethe
- Color for Philosophers, C. Larry Hardin
- Eye, Brain, and Vision, D. Hubel
- Color Vision, L. M. Hurvich
- Color in Business, Science and Industry, D. B. Judd and G. Wyszecki
- A Book of Colors, S. Kobyashi
- Optiks, I. Newton
- An Anthropologist from Mars, O. Sacks
- Dimensional Color, L. Swirnoff
- Foundations of Vision, B. A. Wandell
- A Vision of the Brain, S. Zeki
Last Modified: September 08, 1997