SICE Annual Conference 2008

August 20-22, 2008, The University Electro-Communications, Japan

A Color Compensation Vision System for Color-blind People

Tomoyuki Ohkubo1 and Kazuyuki Kobayashi2

1
Graduate School of Engineering, Hosei University, Tokyo, Japan
(Tel: +81-423-87-6260; E-mail: ohkubo@ikko-lab.k.hosei.ac.jp)
2
Faculty of Engineering Hosei University, Tokyo, Japan
(Tel: +81-423-87-6267; E-mail: ikko@k.hosei.ac.jp)
Abstract: ‫ٻٻ‬In this paper, we propose a color compensation vision system for color-blind people. About 8% of males
and less than 1% of females have faulty color perception from birth. The degree to which a person may possess
abnormal color vision ranges from slight difficulty in recognizing shades of color to total loss of color vision. Most
types of defective color blindness can be classified into two categories: green color defective and red color defective.
The population with the blue color defective type is less than 1%. Thus we mainly focus on a color vision compensation
system that enables color-blind people to see the colors of green and red. In order to compensate image color for
color-blind people, the image in RGB color space is converted to HLS color space which enables the defective color
range to be easily avoided. The validity of the proposed method is confirmed by the developed camera and display color
compensation system.

Keywords: image processing, color-blind people,

1. INTRODUCTION
Color plays an important role in daily life as a Red
fundamental visual feature that gives richness to the
world. Color may seem to be only for decoration, but it
is frequently used as the primary means of informing
people how to interpret information. Color works well
for most people, but about 8% of males and less than
1% of females have faulty color perception from birth.
To prepare for the coming barrier-free society, we need
to take into account people who have faulty color
perception. According to statistics on types of color
blindness, the main types are red defective and green
defective. Thus we mainly focus on a vision Photo 1 Stop color of a traffic signal
compensation system that enables color-blind people to
Photo 2 shows a simulated image of the red-green
see green and red colors. In order to compensate color
defective type of color blindness by using the color
for color-blind people, we developed a color
simulation software called “Toyo Ink: UDing”. As
compensation vision system. In this system, the
shown, it is difficult to distinguish the red color.
captured image in RGB color space is converted to HLS
color space which enables the defective color range to
be easily avoided. The validity of proposed method is
confirmed by the developed camera and display color
compensation system. Dark yellow

2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM

A major problem for color-blind people is
recognizing traffic signals. Because red is commonly
used for cautions and warnings, depending on the
background color of the traffic signal, color-blind
people may not be able to recognize the color
difference.

Photo 2 Appearance of traffic signal to color-blind

people

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apply. 2008 SICE
 㻯㻯㻰
In this study, we examined the following problems:
̽ How to make the color of red visible?
̽ How to evaluate the system?

3. PROPOSED COLOR VISION ASSIST 㻴㻹㻰

SYSTEM
Figure 1 shows a schematic diagram of the proposed
color vision assist system. Inherent color blindness is
caused by the base array of the opsin gene on the
chromosome. One approach to assist color-blind people
is an eye-glass color conversion display system to
enhance color difference, for which we developed a
color compensation algorithm. The developed system
consists of a small camera, image processing unit and Fig. 3 View of wearing the system
wearable display which can monitor real-time like a
single eye-glass. 3. EXPERIMENTS
The captured image in RGB color space can be We applied the developed color assist system to the r
converted to HLS color space to enhance color ealistic situation of a recognizing the traffic signal show
difference depending on the defective color type. Figure n in Photo 1.
2 shows the relation of HLS color visible area for a Photo 3 shows the transformed color image for a red-
normal person and a defective color person. For the green defective type person which is also displayed on t
defective area in HLS color space, we transform the he HMD in the developed system.
defective color space to visible color space by:

H' H / 360 u 270  45 (1)

Magenta
We use “Data Glass 2” (Shimadzu Corporation)
which is a head mounted display (HMD) for wearable
computers.

The transformed image is displayed on the HMD in

real-time.

CCD PC HMD

Photo 3 After image processing

Convert to Convert to
Image Photo 4 shows a simulated transformed color image that
HLS RGB
color space processing color space a red-green defective type person can recognize.

Fig. 1 Block diagram of system

Blue
㻠㻡㼻

㻜㼻 㻾㼑㼐

㻙㻠㻡㼻

Fig. 2 Color conversion model in HLS color space

Photo 4 Appearance of photo 3 for a person with
red-green color vision

In Photo 4, the rightmost light appears to be on.

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 4. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND
DISCUSSION
It is not easy to imagine which color combinations
are confusing for individuals affected by color vision
deficiency. The Variantor is designed for people with
normal color vision. The Variantor color vision
deficiency simulation eye-glass is used to emulate the
same colors as perceived by a color-blind person.
4.2 Evaluation of normal person and color-blind
person
In order to compare viewing between normal people
and color-blind people, we used Variantor to simulate
the view of color-blind people for evaluation
consistency. Figure 4 shows the experimental setup for
the evaluations. The evaluations were carried out by
viewing traffic signals.
Normal
person

4.1 Evaluation of SD method

In this study, we used the semantic differential Traffic signal
method (SD method) to obtain Kansei data. Seventeen
Kansei words are selected in the SD method, as shown Defective
color view
in Table 1. These words are classified into perceptual
words, image words and evaluation words, which are Simulation
eye-glass
components of the hierarchy structural model.
The evaluation was obtained from ten subjects. Each
subject was a male student in his early twenties.

Table 1 Terminology for assessment Color-blind

person
Easy to see Hard to see
(MIYASUI) (MINIKUI)
Not irritated Irritated Fig. 4 Traffic viewing tests – case 1
(IRAIRA SHINAI) (IRAIRA SURU)
To evaluate the traffic viewing test, we apply SD
Clear Vague
profile method which is shown in Figure 5. The result of
(HAKKIRI SHITA) (BONYARI SHITA)
this research has the good result of a normal person.
Strong Weak However, the person who wearied the simulation glass
(TSUYOI) (YOWAI) has brought a bad result. This is because the red signal
Beautiful Ugly is changing, as the experiment showed.
(UTSUKUSHII) (KITANAI)
Bright Dark
(AKARUI) (KURAI)
Not tired Tired
(TSUKARENAI) (TSUKARERU)
Sharp Dull
(SURUDOI) (NIBUI)
Clear Dirty
(SUNDA) (NIGOTTA)
Not flickering Flickering
(CHIRATSUKANAI) (CHIRATSUKU)
Standing out Not standing out
(UKIDETA) (SHIZUNDA)
Conspicuous Inconspicuous
(MEDATSU) (MEDATANAI)
Not glaring Glaring
(GIRAGIRA SHINAI) (GIRAGIRA SURU)
Comfortable Uncomfortable
(OCHITSUKU) (UWATSUITA)
Warm Cool
(ATATAKAI) (SUZUSHII)
Not spread Spread
(NIJIMANAI) (NIJIMU)
Vivid Quiet ଝnormal person ೕsimulated person
(AZAYAKA) (JIMI) Fig. 5 SD profiles of case 1

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4.3 Evaluations with proposed color vision assist The SD profile indicates that the evaluation results
system are almost the same with or without Variantor. The
According to the raw vision evaluation results, we proposed color vision assist system thus converts color
examined our proposed color vision assist system. vision consistently, regardless of normal and/or
Figure 6 shows the configuration used to evaluate our defective color, confirming the validity of our system.
system. The difference between previous experiments is
whether our proposed system is used or not. 5. CONCLUSIONS
Normal
person
In this paper, we proposed a color compensation
CCD vision system for color-blind people. We confirmed its
validity by using a camera with the display color
HMD compensation system.
Traffic signal
CCD
REFERENCES
[1] S. Muramatsu, Image & video signal processing
HMD with MATLAB, CQ Pub., 2007.
Simulation [2] Toyo Ink: Universal Design,
eye-glass
http://www.toyoink.co.jp/ud/index.html.
[3] Seuttgi Ymg and Yong Man Ro, “Visual contents
adaptation for color vision deficiency”, Proc. of
ICIP 2003, Vol. 1, pp. I-453-456, 2003.
Color-blind
person
[4] Yau-Hwang Kuo and Jang-Pong Hsu, “MCFC-R: a
fuzzy connectionist model for color-blindness plate
Fig. 6 Traffic viewing tests – case 2 recognition”, Proc of ICNN’96, Vol. 2, pp. 718-723,
1996.
The results of this research were converted into an
SD profile as shown below.

‫ی‬normal person ‫ڦ‬simulated person

‫ی‬
Fig. 7 SD profiles of case 2

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