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This synthetic image approximates the appearance of the World Color Survey Munsell chart. For each swatch, the color shown is either a simulation of the color shown on the physical chart, or, in cases where that color is too saturated for a typical computer display to reproduce, is the nearest color of the same hue and lightness within the capabilities of a typical computer display. More technically, the colors of the physical WCS chart are defined with respect to the Munsell color system, which is itself formally specified by a report issued in 1943 by the Optical Society of America, called the Munsell renotations. The OSA specifies Munsell colors as lit by standard illuminant C; to translate these colors to the sRGB color space standard for the Web, colors must undergo a chromatic adaptation transformation. In this image, the Munsell value scale has been scaled to fall between the sRGB black point and white point, and the CAT02 chromatic adaptation transformation has been used to adapt colors to the sRGB D65 white point. For those colors which fall outside the sRGB gamut, the colors shown were derived by interpolating between renotation colors in CIELAB space. It is difficult if not impossible to perfectly accurately represent the colors of colored paint chips on a computer display, given the complexity of color appearance. And so this image should not be interpreted to perfectly show even the colors of the WCS chart within the sRGB gamut. Nonetheless, it should give some idea what WCS respondents were looking at when providing names for each WCS swatch. WCS is grateful to Jacob Rus for his assistance in preparation of the PNG image and its description. |