BRL102@psuvm.psu.edu (Ben Liblit) (11/08/90)
As computers' color capabilities grow more and more sophisticated, the number of possible colors one can display grows larger and larger. I am curious, though: how much is too much? Is it known approximately how many distinct colors the human eye is able to distinguish? Even an order-of-magnitude esti- mate would suffice. Ben Liblit BRL102 @ psuvm.bitnet -- BRL102 @ psuvm.psu.edu "Fais que tes reves soient plus longs que la nuit."
stebbins@campanella.ucr.edu (john stebbins) (11/09/90)
In article <90311.133441BRL102@psuvm.psu.edu>, BRL102@psuvm.psu.edu (Ben Liblit) writes: |> As computers' color capabilities grow more and more sophisticated, the number |> of possible colors one can display grows larger and larger. I am curious, |> though: how much is too much? Is it known approximately how many distinct |> colors the human eye is able to distinguish? Even an order-of-magnitude esti- |> mate would suffice. |> |> Ben Liblit |> BRL102 @ psuvm.bitnet -- BRL102 @ psuvm.psu.edu |> "Fais que tes reves soient plus longs que la nuit." The number of distinct shades of grey you can see is somewhere around 90 to 100. I have never heard any figures for seeing distinct colors, but my guess is you can scale up from the figure for shades by giving each of the 3 primary colors 100 different shades. Then when you combine them you get 100^3 possibilities. I know color vision is physically much different then black and white vision, but you just asked for an order of magnitude figure. This ought to be a pretty close guess. John Stebbins stebbins@ucrmath.ucr.edu