October 29, Tuesday 10:15 – 12:15 (2 hours)

Instructor: John Seymour, John the Math Guy, LLC, and Clemson University

Level: Advanced

Prerequisites: An understanding of CIELAB, color difference, and elementary statistics.

Benefits This course enables the attendee to:

 • Understand why Delta E is appropriate for conformance testing, but problematic for statistical process control.

 • Review conventional SPC.

 • Understand the ellipsoidal cloud of color variation.

 • Develop new statistical tools for 3D SPC.

Course Description

Virtually nothing that you learned in Stats 101 can be applied to color data. Color is three dimensional and Stats 101 lives in one dimension. Even if you reduce color data to a ΔE color difference, Stats 101 won’t help you. The color difference is not normally distributed and often computing the color difference throws the baby out with the bathwater. Valuable information is lost. In this course, you learn why the traditional tools of statistical process control are inappropriate for color data, and gain an understanding of new tools, based on three dimensional statistics, that allow you to turn color data into knowledge.

Intended Audience: anyone who analyzes color data.

John Seymour is an applied mathematician and color scientist, teaching color science at Clemson University and consulting as “John the Math Guy.” He holds 31 US patents and has 71 publications/presentations. He writes a blog described as “applied math and color science with a liberal sprinkling of goofy humor.”