Colour and spectral measurement in digital images
In 1802 Thomas Young recognised that eyes have to compromise between measurement of the spectrum and spatial location. Young suggested trichromacy was the best compromise. In fact because they vary smoothly with wavelength trichromacy may be near to optimal for encoding natural reflectance spectra in the visible range. However ordinary cameras are rarely used for colour measurement. Instead spectrometry and colorimetry uses devices that measure the entire spectrum at a single point (with huge redundancy), or hyperspectral or multispectral imaging devices, which are costly and inconvenient.
Colourworker® allows the user to makes colorimetric and spectral measurements with ordinary cameras. This proprietary technology developed by John Anderson and Daniel Osorio, with support from the University of Sussex automatically calibrates any colour camera using a conventional colour standard such as a ColorChecker, and then uses prior information about particular classes of pigmentation for estimating reflectance spectra and colour via conventional by statistical modelling.
Colourworker is currently under development for application in medical imaging. This technology may interest researchers and others who wish to make image based colour measurement, especially to complement conventional spectroscopy.
The software and further information are freely available via this link.