# The RGB Universe

One image bounded to three respective spaces: Colour, Chromaticity, and Hue.

The Colour-Space: RGB
Everyone is familiar with this, it is the additive model for colours that uses the primaries: red, green & blue. A 3D Model where each unique colour sits at position (x: r, y: g, z: b).

The Chromaticity-Space: RCGCBC
Some people will be familiar with this, it is RGB without luminance, the brightness is removed in a way that doesn’t effect the hue or saturation. It is referred to as rg-Chromaticity because it’s construction from RGB means only two elements are needed to represent all the chromaticity values:

 Conversion to Conversion from (kind of*) $R_C= \frac{R}{R+G+B}$ $G_C= \frac{G}{R+G+B}$ $B_C= \frac{B}{R+G+B}$ $R = \frac{R_C G}{G_C}$ $G = G$ $B = \frac{(1 - R_C - G_C) G}{G_C}$

It will always be that $R_C + G_C + B_C = 1$ so by discarding the blue component we can have unique chromaticities as (x: r’, y: g’). This means that rg-Chromaticity is a 2D-Model and when converting to it from RGB we lose the luminance. So it is impossible to convert back. *An in-between for this is the colour-space rgG where the G component preserves luminance in the image.

The Hue-Space: RHGHBH
No one uses this, I just thought it would be fun to apply the same as above and extract the saturation from RCGCBC. Like RCGCBC it is a 2D Model, this seems strange because it is only representing one attribute –hue– but it is because the elements themselves have a ternary relationship (how much red, how much green, how much blue) and so to extrapolate one you must know the other two.

 Conversion to 3-tuple Hue Normalise to 2D $M = \text{Max}(R,G,B)$ $m = \text{Min}(R,G,B)$ $\delta = 255/(M-m)$ $R_h = (R-m) \delta$ $G_h = (G-m) \delta$ $B_h = (B-m) \delta$ $R_H = \frac{R_h}{R_h + G_h + B_h}$ $G_H = \frac{G_h}{R_h + G_h + B_h}$ $B_H = \frac{B_h}{R_h + G_h + B_h}$

Measuring Hue Distance
The HSL colour-space records hue as a single element, H, making measuring distance as easy as $\Delta H = \sqrt{{H_a}^2 - {H_b}^2}$ where as in rg-Hue we have two elements so $\Delta H = \sqrt{({R''_a}^2 - {R''_b}^2) + ({G''_a}^2 - {G''_b}^2)}$ where $R'' = R_H$ and $G'' = G_H$ for readability. What’s interesting here is it works almost the same. Though it should be noted that on a line only two distances are equidistant to zero at one time where as in rg-Hue, on a 2D plane, there are many equidistant points around circles.

Below are images of a RGB testcard where each pixel’s hue has been measured against a colour palette (60° Rainbow) and coloured with the closest match. The rg-Hue measure has a notable consistency to it and shows more red on the right hand side than HSL, but also between the yellow and red there is a tiny slither of purple. I believe this is from the equal distance hues and the nature of looking through a list for the lowest value when there are multiple lowest values:

 Hue Distance (HSL) Hue Distance (RHGHBH)

# Full Spectrum Photography: Mapping

This post shows three examples of full spectrum mapping methods for multispectral photography. I’ve used some quick shots I took inbetween rain clouds so I apologise for the poor quality – especially the infrared image. All shots taken on a converted D70.

 Infrared (720nm filter) Visible light (Hoya cut filter) Ultraviolet (Baader-U filter)

The only map I see often is the classic 3to3 map. The characteristics are so that vegetation stands out in a very prominent red, nectar guides are clear cut and clear skies are a strong blue. The next map is weighted, roughly, 5to3 on the proportional spectrum each [I,R,G,B,U] component covers as wavelengths. The output shows the nectar guide enough for it to be noticeable, but clearly less so. The last map is my favourite so far, it is a 5to3 map that distributes the [I,R,G,B,U] in equal proportions. It dulls the bright red vegetation caused by infrared in the red channel and shows the nectar guide a little better than the previous map.

 Map Type Channels & Output Classic IR-VIS-UV R: IR G: VIS B: UV Proportional IRGBU R: (IR + IR + (IR * 0.33)) * 0.42 G: ((IR * 0.66) + R + (G * 0.66)) * 0.42 B: (UV + B + (G * 0.33)) * 0.42 Equal IRGBU R: (IR + (R * 0.66)) * 0.60 G: ((R * 0.33) + G + (B * 0.33)) * 0.60 B: (UV + (B * 0.66)) * 0.60

# Testing Infrared Software

This post is to show one of the features of WavelengthPro, some photography software I’m writing at the moment. It’s in early stages at the moment, I hope to add a lot more.

Channel Map Templates
I plan on having a basic and advanced way of mixing channels, so far I’ve done the basic version where you choose template maps. The advanced version will use percent sliders of every channel for every channel just like in Photoshop or GIMP etc. Below is a table showing the three starting images (all taken on a full-spec D70 using 720nm, Hoya UV/IR cut and Baader-U filters) and some of the possible mixtures using the program.

 Infrared Visible Ultraviolet Output image: Mapping information: Applying Auto-WB: IRG 3to3 map [R:ir, G:r, B:g] IRGB 4to3 map [R:ir+(r*0.33), G:(r*0.66)+(g*0.66), B:(g*0.33)+b] * 0.75 IRGB 4to3 map [R:ir, G:(r+g)/2, B:b] IR-VIS-UV 3to3 map [R:ir, G:vis, B:uv] IRGBU 5to3 map [R:(ir+r)/2, G:g, B:(b+uv)/2] IRGBU 5to3 map [R:ir+(r*0.66), G:(r*0.33)+g+(b*0.33), B:(b*0.66) + uv] * 0.60 GBU 3to3 map [R:g, G:b, B:uv] IR/UV 2to3 map [R:ir, G:(ir+uv)/2, B:uv]

# Almost UV Photography

For ages I have wanted to do full-spectrum photography, which captures light from Infrared (IR) all the way to ultraviolet (UV), but the UV aspect of it is bloody expensive! DSLR sensors, both CCD and CMOS, capture light slightly outside the visible spectrum (VIS) but use things like hot mirrors and UV filters to narrow the band closer to 390-700nm. The sensors use channeling methods like a Bayer filter to give us the very useful RGB channels, in this post we will work with extra channels for IR and UV.

I am always looking for cheap alternatives for UV and I thought I’d test out a bit of a long shot – using a UV filter to maths my way to a UV image. To do this I bought a daylight simulating bulb that emits UVA (400-315nm) and some flowers from the local gas station. It’s a simple idea, the extra light that the UV filter blocks must be UV light so if we subtract all the other light we are left with UV.

No Filter – UV Filter = UV ResidueI subtracted each colour separately for each pixel: [r1-r2, g1-g2, b1-b2], it was rather red so I used the red channel for the new R,G and B making a brighter grayscaled image (see below). Then I used that new “UV” image along with the colour image to map channels [GBU to RGB] like the images Infrachrome makes using this technique. For infrared and ultraviolet he uses an adapted camera specifically for full-spectrum, infact he uses two in a fantastical and magical set up. Unfortunately mine didn’t work very well, my first guess was that the lower range of blue light being reflected as there is no sign of a nectar guide. But after consulting a pro UV photographer I was told it is due to infrared-leakage.

I thought I’d do a full spectrum map whilst I had the camera set up so I put on a 950nm IR pass filter and took another shot. In the above image the far right is the channel map of the other three.