Eyeteq algorithm helps the colorblind see colors
Color-blind individuals can be restricted from certain tasks and job types—especially when red and green colors are involved that translate into "stop" and "go" functions. This color vision deficiency (CVD) occurs when red or green cones are missing from the normal red, green, and blue (RGB) cones found in the retina. Using the Eyeteq image-processing algorithm, researchers at Spectral Edge (Cambridge, England) can allow CVD sufferers to see colors better in still and video images.
The Eyeteq algorithm works by using image-fusion principles that are designed to take images captured in a light that is invisible to the naked eye (infrared) and "project" them into regular color images. Similarly, it considers the light spectrum that CVD sufferers struggle to discriminate and projects it in a part of the spectrum they can see. More precisely, Eyeteq decomposes image features into color and contrast (by "contrast" meaning "color difference"; that is, between black and white there is high contrast, between red and orange not as much). It then takes the contrast component and projects it to the color range in which CVD sufferers achieve normal discrimination, while preserving the overall original color information. This way, CVD sufferers can distinguish between colors they normally confuse, and at the same time viewers with normal color vision can still enjoy natural colors. Reference: Spectral Edge, Eyeteq white paper v1.0, "Enhancing TV and video for color blind viewers" (2016); http://spectraledge.co.uk/publications.
Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)
Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.