Hacker changes the way people with colour blindness see the world

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2010/12/18/did-a-hacker-just-cure-colour-blindness/

by zeedotme • 16 years ago

55 17 16 years ago

The opposite would be really good for designers - augmented reality of what a colour blind person would see. Would be good to check if your design is going to make life difficult for the colour blind.

andrewjshults• 16 years ago

Photoshop has actually implemented this since CS4 (http://www.colblindor.com/2009/01/04/photoshop-cs4-accessibi...). I would imagine that it's probably in other parts of creative suite as well.

teaspoon• 16 years ago

You can upload screenshots to this free service:

http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/vischeckImage.php

yv• 16 years ago

My brother has developed an app that does this:

http://ilabs.microsoft.com/Project/Pages/Project.aspx?Projec...

streeter• 16 years ago

There is a java app called Color Oracle that works on all platforms (http://colororacle.cartography.ch/). Turn it on and choose which color blindness to simulate.

I'm color blind and when switching to protanopia, the colors on my screen don't actually change for me.

bconway• 16 years ago

Great app. I wouldn't recommend using it in a theater, though (the original inspiration).

jaxn• 16 years ago

I am looking forward to testing this out.

I wish they would have a colorblind test at the start and adjust the settings for me based on what kind of colorblindness I have.

pygy_• 16 years ago

Edit:

tl;dr - color is a 3D space. Colorblind people can only percieve two of these. This device may change the projection of the 3D space on their 2D space, but it will not magically make the third dimension pop out.

-- original post, a bit less synthetic.

Color is a 3D space (wherever you chose to put the axes, RGB, HSL...) because we have three subtypes of color-related light detectors, called cones, in our retina (there are more photosensitive cells, but they aren't involved in color).

Each cone is sensitive to a range of the visible spectrum, with peak sensitivity respectively in what we call red, green and blue. These ranges are overlapping, though, which allows our brain to interpret monochromatic light correctly by weighting the response of each type of cone.

See [1] for a schema and a more thorough explanation.

Note also that magenta exists as a color (ie unique subjective experience), even though no monochromatic light can evoke it. You get it by stimulating the red and the blue cones, sparring the green one.

All of this to say that with two cones, you're stuck in a 2D space of color blindness.

This tool may help colorblind people to get a different projection of the 3D space in their 2D detection field, but they will not be able to perceive the 3D space at once.

For those who didn't get their dose of photoreceptors trivia:

The retina also contains another type of detectors called rods, which are much more sensitive to light than the cones, and is involved in both day and night vision whereas the cones are only stimulated in daylight This explains why you don't percieve colors in the darkness.

At last, the recently discovered melanopsin containing ganglion cells are involved in the circadian cycle and other light-related acivity in the autonomous nevous system.

[1] http://www.unm.edu/~toolson/human_cone_response.htm

extension• 16 years ago

Except we don't perceive the dimensions of color as comprehensively as we perceive multi-dimensional space. We can intuitively construct straight lines, planes, spheres, cubes and various other geometric primitives. We can't construct those things in color space without a lot of specialized knowledge.

We basically perceive colors as similar or not, as well as a few basic attributes like brightness and saturation. If we're missing a dimension, we just can't differentiate between as many colors as other people. This is why people can go their entire lives without realizing they are colorblind.

So, if you can compress the normal range of colors into the range that can be seen by someone with partial colorblindness, it could potentially make all the difference.

Note also that magenta exists as a color (ie unique subjective experience), even though no monochromatic light can evoke it

I don't think any light can evoke it, right? You would have to artificially stimulate the optic nerve to see it.

runjake• 16 years ago

As a colorblind person, I'd like to see something similar to Barcode Scanner with a smaller reticle to identify colors (RGB | human equivalent name) the reticle is over.

When I have some time, I plan to do this myself, if nobody else does.

sp332• 16 years ago

Have you tried the Color Identifier app? http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/color-identifier/id363346987?... Discussed here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1704933

cloudwalking2• 16 years ago

I'm colorblind and have used this. I find it frustrating, because the names are often completely useless. The app's author points this out in the linked thread:

"The whimsical color names made me think that the app would be less useful for the colorblind, as most people don't understand colors like "Cosmic" and "Hippie Green." So I thought the app would be mostly used as a toy; a fun way to see what the "color" of your friend's face is ("Tacao"!)."

po• 16 years ago

Interestingly, and perhaps more importantly, the theory works the other way too. It is possible to simulate color blindness for normal people as well. I know I've seen an application that allowed you to view various things as the various colorblind conditions would see it. It allowed you to check things like button contrast on websites.

Another thing I don't understand is that if you're used to seeing things in a certain color space, and this app "fixes" it, then wouldn't it look strange to you? I mean, I get that it can be useful to discern colors that look the same to you, but it's not like the image will be more "normal" for you right?

phillipmstewart• 16 years ago

Didn't want to waste my money on this, but judging from the fact that this app doesn't use magic(and screen caps), I can tell you that it doesn't work.

You can separate colors on a spectrum all you want... it doesn't make a bit of difference.

Now... if you had it display the name of the color... great. That would be a huge asset. Not an expensive chore that just confuses me more.

rasur• 16 years ago

This is quite nice, but the real killer version would be when the user has "virtual light" glasses (cf William Gibson, or - more physically - Prof. Steve Mann's "EyeTap" wearable computing ideas).

Then the colour-blind user would receive the benefit as long as they were wearing glasses (contrasted to looking through a phone when they needed to check a colour).

Hacker changes the way people with colour blindness see the world

Related Stories