Retinex color space
Date: 1970-1985
Inventory Number: 2004-1-0162
Classification: Color Space Model
Subject:
Maker: Edwin H. Land (1909 - 1991)
Cultural Region:
Place of Origin:
Dimensions:
each plate: 0.5 x 37 x 37 cm (3/16 x 14 9/16 x 14 9/16 in.)
box: 47.5 x 47.5 x 46 cm (18 11/16 x 18 11/16 x 18 1/8 in.)
Material:
Description:
The large box contains a stack of plexiglass plates showing a variety of geometrical patterns made of colored stickers. The plates can be mounted on top of each other, sliding through grooves on side panels.
In Collection(s)
Signedunsigned
FunctionIt was used with the Retinex theory of color vision. It was made to create a three-dimensional color space not based on a triplet of energies at a point but by the triplet of lightnesses computed by the eye for each area. These plexiglas plates represent horizontal planes cut through the three-dimensional color space. Each plane is the locus of colors possible with a constant short-wave lightness. Land depicted such planes cut in his Scientific American article.
Primary SourcesEdwin Land, "The Retinex Theory of Color Vision," Scientific American 237 (1977): 108-128.
ProvenanceThis object belonged to Edwin H. Land and came from the Rowland Institute, Harvard University. Gift of the Edwin H. Land Family.