CIC31 EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM

Level: Introductory

Prerequisites: High-school level familiarity with science and math concepts. Prior familiarity with basics of signal and image processing, in particular Fourier representations, is helpful although not essential for an intuitive understanding.

Benefits This course enables the attendee to:

• Summarize the basic findings from color matching experiments and describe the concept of trichromacy.
• Compute tristimulus values from spectral distributions and transform between commonly used color space representations.
• Describe how color representations relate to the stages of the human visual system.
• Discuss chromatic adaptation and its critical role in color perception.
• Define the concept of a metamer and highlight the distinction between illuminant, observer, and device metamerism.
• Explain the utility of uniform color spaces and color appearance attributes.
• Outline the role that models of color perception play in imaging systems.
• Infer the conceptual basis of commonly encountered color processing functions in imaging systems, such as white balance and gamma correction.

Course Description
This 8-hour course provides a comprehensive introduction to the fundamentals of color perception, measurement, and representation and an overview of how these play a role in modern imaging systems. It begins with a summary of the psychophysics of color: starting from spectral power distributions that form the physical basis of color, proceeding through successive stages of the human visual system, and culminating in the perceptual precepts of hue, saturation, and lightness. Elements of anatomy and physiology involved in these visual system stages are also briefly described in this context. Basic colorimetric and perceptual color representations rooted in the psychophysics of color are developed with a particular focus on the commonly used CIE standards, specifically, the CIEXYZ tristimulus space that is the basis of colorimetry and the CIELAB and CIELUV perceptually uniform color spaces. Chromaticity representations are covered as convenient 2D visualization tools. The course also includes a high-level overview of imaging systems that highlights the role played by models of color perception in their design and use.

Intended Audience: scientists, engineers, students, and managers involved in the design of color processing algorithms or color imaging systems.

Gaurav Sharma has more than 25 years of experience in the design and optimization of color imaging systems and algorithms that spans employment at the Xerox Innovation Group and his current position as a professor at the University of Rochester in the departments of electrical and computer engineering and of computer science. Additionally, he has consulted for several companies on the development of new imaging systems and algorithms. He holds 54 issued patents and has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications. He is the editor of the Digital Color Imaging Handbook (CRC Press) and served as the editor-in-chief for the SPIE/IS&T Journal of Electronic Imaging (2011-2015) and for the IEEE Transactions on Image Processing (2018-2020). Sharma is a fellow of IS&T, IEEE, and SPIE, and the IS&T Publications VP.

 

Level: Intermediate

Prerequisites: A basic understanding of color science.

Benefits This course enables the attendee to:

• Understand the need for camera colorimetric characterization and the impact of color calibration on image quality and manufacturing yield.
• Perform target-based and spectral-based camera characterization.
• Solve for colorimetric camera transforms and build profiles using linear and nonlinear techniques.
• Evaluate current colorimetric camera characterization hardware and software technology and products.
• Participate in hands-on spectral camera characterization, camera transform generation, and matching from capture to display.

Course Description
This course covers the process of colorimetric camera characterization in theory and practice. The need for camera characterization and calibration and the impact on general image quality is first reviewed. Known issues in traditional approaches are discussed. Methodology for building camera colorimetric transforms and profiles are detailed step-by-step. State-of-the-art solutions using current technology are presented including monochromators, multispectral LED light sources, in situ measurements of spectral radiances of natural objects, and modern color transform methods including multidimensional color look up tables. A live demonstration is performed of the end-to-end process of spectral camera characterization, camera transform generation, and matching from capture to display. This course provides the basis needed to implement advanced color correction in cameras and software.

Intended Audience: engineers, project leaders, and managers involved in camera image processing pipeline development, image quality engineering, and production-line quality assurance.

Eric Walowit’s interests are in color management, appearance estimation, and image processing pipelines for digital photographic applications. He is the founder (retired) of Color Savvy Systems, a color management hardware and software company. He graduated from RIT’s image science program, concentrating in color science. Walowit is a member of ICC, ISO/TC42, IS&T, and CIEJTC10.

Dietmar Wueller studied photographic sciences in Cologne. He is the founder of Image Engineering, one of the leading suppliers of test equipment for digital image capture devices. Wueller is a member of IS&T, DGPH, and ECI, and he is the German representative for ISO/TC42/WG18; he also participates in several other standardization activities.

 

Description
Please note: This workshop will be held outside the campus. Attendees are responsible for getting themselves to/from the venue. Venue details will be provided to attendees prior to the event. Ticket required for entry.


Digital cinema is a demanding application of color image science; color grading is a central aspect of digital cinema. A digital cinema image/color scientist and an accomplished colorist team up to describe cinema color grading, and show you by example why cinema color grading involves much more than a “scene-to-screen” transfer. Using live demonstrations, this workshop delves into camera technology and camera image coding. It describes the “pipeline” of post-production and mastering, including the important scene rendering transform, and how and where art is introduced, with examples. The radiometric (linear-light) internals of modern grading systems such as Baselight and Resolve are detailed. It ends with a discussion of color coding for distribution – the DCI X’Y’Z’ scheme, with its standard DCI P3 primaries, and recently commercialized HDR distribution schemes including HDR10 and ICtCp-based Dolby Vision.

Charles Poynton is an independent researcher based in Toronto, Canada, who specializes in the physics, mathematics, and engineering of digital colour imaging systems.

Color scientist Laurens Orij is a colorist for movies and commercials at Crab Salad in the Netherlands.