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Exploring Trichromacy through Maxwell's Color Experiment (2023)

44 points by niwrad 1y ago

I built an interactive which recreates one of James Clerk Maxwell’s lesser-known color experiments that helped discover the trichromatic theory—remarkably accurate, even by today’s standards. Please do let me know if you have any additional questions or feedback about my interactive!

deleted 1y ago
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stephenlf 1y ago
Awesome read. Thanks for sharing.
- niwrad 1y ago
  Thank you for the encouraging words! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Etherlord87 1y ago
https://i.imgur.com/EWqdwMV.png https://i.imgur.com/EWqdwMV.png
turnsout 1y ago
This is awesome—I had never read about this experiment. I'm using the CMF quite heavily right now as I develop a spectral color management system. It's amazing that Maxwell was able to essentially plot out the CMF so early!
- niwrad 1y ago
  That’s really cool — it makes me happy to hear from someone that appreciates the novelty and feat of his experiment just through perceptual matching! The precision he achieved with such limited tools is honestly mind-blowing. What are you developing a spectral CMS for? Is it for lighting or materials or something imaging related?
  - turnsout 1y ago
    It really is mind-blowing! The CMS I'm building is for creative imaging—I want to model some specific subtractive processes from the physical world digitally. In the process, I had to come up with a way to convert RGB to spectral power, and was surprised to find that while there's a Spectral -> XYZ function (CMF), there's no industry standard inverse (XYZ -> Spectral). So I came up with a function which allows you to specify three RGB peaks, along with their widths, and it solves for the correct peak levels to reproduce an XYZ equivalent to the input color. This is my idea of fun! haha
rogerallen 1y ago
Very nice article. I don’t think I was aware of these experiments, but maybe I’ve forgotten? Apologies if I just missed this, but is there a link to Maxwell’s original findings?
- niwrad 1y ago
  Thank you! Maxwell's "color wheel" experiment (https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/PH-CAVENDISH-P-02000/1 https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/PH-CAVENDISH-P-02000/1) is more commonly known, which preceded this experiment I wrote about. (Which by the way is also a very clever experiment which blends color by spinning a wheel with different ratios of primary colors). Here's a link to Maxwell's original paper: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstl.1860.0005 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstl.1860.000... You can see some diagrams of his original apparatus that I worked off of in the last two pages!
klaff 1y ago
Nice work! I really enjoy learning how people did these experiments and learned such fundamental stuff with only "stone knives and bear skins"!
- niwrad 1y ago
  Absolutely — these old papers are fascinating. I was also surprised by how much insight is packed into them, especially considering how non-trivial some of it is to unpack. My professor and I spent quite a bit of time reconstructing how the experiment worked from the limited figures.

44 points by niwrad 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

stephenlf 1y ago

Awesome read. Thanks for sharing.

niwrad 1y ago
Thank you for the encouraging words! I’m glad you enjoyed it.

Etherlord87 1y ago

https://i.imgur.com/EWqdwMV.png https://i.imgur.com/EWqdwMV.png

turnsout 1y ago

This is awesome—I had never read about this experiment. I'm using the CMF quite heavily right now as I develop a spectral color management system. It's amazing that Maxwell was able to essentially plot out the CMF so early!

niwrad 1y ago
That’s really cool — it makes me happy to hear from someone that appreciates the novelty and feat of his experiment just through perceptual matching! The precision he achieved with such limited tools is honestly mind-blowing. What are you developing a spectral CMS for? Is it for lighting or materials or something imaging related?
- turnsout 1y ago
  It really is mind-blowing! The CMS I'm building is for creative imaging—I want to model some specific subtractive processes from the physical world digitally. In the process, I had to come up with a way to convert RGB to spectral power, and was surprised to find that while there's a Spectral -> XYZ function (CMF), there's no industry standard inverse (XYZ -> Spectral). So I came up with a function which allows you to specify three RGB peaks, along with their widths, and it solves for the correct peak levels to reproduce an XYZ equivalent to the input color. This is my idea of fun! haha

rogerallen 1y ago

Very nice article. I don’t think I was aware of these experiments, but maybe I’ve forgotten? Apologies if I just missed this, but is there a link to Maxwell’s original findings?

niwrad 1y ago
Thank you! Maxwell's "color wheel" experiment (https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/PH-CAVENDISH-P-02000/1 https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/PH-CAVENDISH-P-02000/1) is more commonly known, which preceded this experiment I wrote about. (Which by the way is also a very clever experiment which blends color by spinning a wheel with different ratios of primary colors). Here's a link to Maxwell's original paper: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstl.1860.0005 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstl.1860.000... You can see some diagrams of his original apparatus that I worked off of in the last two pages!

klaff 1y ago

Nice work! I really enjoy learning how people did these experiments and learned such fundamental stuff with only "stone knives and bear skins"!

niwrad 1y ago
Absolutely — these old papers are fascinating. I was also surprised by how much insight is packed into them, especially considering how non-trivial some of it is to unpack. My professor and I spent quite a bit of time reconstructing how the experiment worked from the limited figures.