Bongsun Lee

Inverse display characterization: A two-step parametric model for digital displays

— A simple additivity model is often used as a basic model for digital-display characterization. However, such a simple model cannot satisfy the needs of demanding color-management applications all the time. On the other hand, systematic sampling of the color space and 3-D interpolation is an expensive method in terms of measurement and computation time when precision is needed. This paper presents an enhanced method to characterize the XYZ-to-RGB transform of a digital display. This parametric method exploits the independence between the luminance variation of the electro-optic response and the colorimetric responses for certain display types. The model is generally applicable to digital displays, including 3-DMD projectors, single DMDs, CRTs, LCDs, etc., if the independence condition is satisfied. While the problem to solve is a 3-D-to-3-D transformation (from XYZ to RGB), the proposed parametric model is the composition of a 2-D transform followed by a 1-D transform. The 2-D transform manages the chromatic aspects and, in succession, the 1-D transform manages the luminance variations. This parametric digital model is applicable in the field of color management, with the objective of characterizing digital displays and applying a reference look such as a film look.