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The CIE System

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Abstract

Colorimetry is a branch of color science concerned with numerically specifying the color of physically defined stimuli such that two stimuli that look the same (under certain criteria) have identical specifications. The Commission Internationale de l’Eclairage (CIE) developed a system for the specification of color stimuli that was recommended for widespread use in 1931 and that has formed the basis of colorimetry for the last 80 years. This chapter briefly describes the development of the CIE system and explains key principles (such as additive color mixing and Grassman’s laws) upon which the system is based. Specification of color by tristimulus values is described and the importance of chromaticity diagrams is discussed.

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References

  1. Ohta N, Robertson AR (2005) Colorimetry fundamentals and applications. Wiley, New York

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Further Reading

  • Hunt RWG (1998) Measuring colour, 3rd edn. Fountain Press, London

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  • Kuehni RG (2003) Color space and its divisions. Wiley, New Jersey

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  • Wyszecki G, Stiles WS (1982) Color science – Concepts and methods, quantitative data and formulae, 2nd edn. Wiley, New York

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Correspondence to Stephen Westland .

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© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Westland, S. (2012). The CIE System. In: Chen, J., Cranton, W., Fihn, M. (eds) Handbook of Visual Display Technology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-79567-4_11

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