Paradigm for achieving color‐reproduction accuracy in LCDs for medical imaging

Abstract— A methodology and associated software modules for calibration, characterization, and profiling of color LCDs for color‐critical applications in medical imaging is described. Supporting analyses reveal very high color‐reproduction accuracy as determined by CIE DE2000 color differences for 21 0 test colors uniformly distributed in CIE Lab color space. The impact of the LCD tone‐reproduction curve on color‐reproduction accuracy is compared for two tone‐reproduction curves of special interest in medical imaging: the DICOM gray‐scale standard display function and the CIE L* standard lightness function. The initial results from a psychophysical investigation of the diagnostic performance of trained pathologists viewing “virtual” breast biopsy slides are reported and the diagnostic performance achieved with calibrated, color‐managed LCDs with uncalibrated LCDs without the benefits of color management is compared.     

A method for selecting display primaries to match a target color gamut

Abstract— A method for selecting primaries of a wide‐gamut display is proposed, in which display color gamut is designed to match a target color gamut in CIELAB color space. A standard deviation of the relative maximum chroma of display and target color gamuts is defined. The selection method optimizes display primaries for the minimum standard deviation so that display and target color gamuts are similar in shape. It is shown that the color gamut of a laser display designed by this method is similar in shape to the theoretical maximum, or optimal, color gamut of objects. It is also shown that the color gamut of an LED display can be designed to include 99.7% of the gamut of Pointer's real‐world surface colors. LED primaries are selected to minimize the standard deviation of the relative maximum chroma of effective display color gamut and a target color gamut which is defined to include Pointer's real‐world surface colors. For both the laser and LED displays, it is necessary to constrain the red‐primary wavelength to avoid excessive optical power for the red primary.     

Method to improve color reproduction on a 120‐Hz two‐field color‐sequential LCD

Conventional displays use at least three primaries for full‐color image reproduction. In this contribution, the reproduction of color images using an LCD system with two local dynamic primaries, based on a segmented backlight, will be discussed. The two primaries are chosen to minimize color error by means of total least squares. Simulation results indicate quite good color reproduction for a large set of video data even with a limited number of backlight segments. A statistical analysis of this video content shows that excellent color reproduction (?u′v′ < 0.020 for more than 99.0% of the pixels per frame) can be achieved for 74.2% of the frames using 9216 backlight segments.     

Effects of display properties on perceived color‐gamut volume and preference

Abstract— The effect of varying the color gamut of an extended‐gamut LCD on color appearance and preference was measured psychometrically in two experiments at each of two separate laboratories over a representative set of 10 images each. The first experiment measured the effect of color gamut on appearance, and the effect on the appearance attribute colorfulness was shown to be relatively strong compared with other attributes as the volume of display color gamut is varied. Overall, colorfulness monotonically increased at constant sensitivity as the gamut area in xy chromaticities increased while tending to become less and less sensitive to increasing the gamut volumes in CIELAB and CIECAM02. In the second experiment, the overall preference indicated an optimal color gamut for the display gamut volume even though the results were shown to be highly scene dependent.     

Power‐saving primary design for displays enclosing a target color gamut

Abstract— Display primaries are optimized for the trade‐off between the total primary power and color gamut under the requirement that a target color gamut is enclosed by the color gamut of the display. LED displays and HDTV color gamut are taken as examples. Compared to the display using a set of typical commercial RGB LEDs, it was found that a total optical (electrical) power of 23.6% (15.6%) can be saved for the display using optimal RGB LEDs. Although the size of the display color gamut is sacrificed, the color gamut of the display using optimal RGB LEDs still encloses the HDTV color gamut. The combined effect of the LED luminous efficiency and white‐point condition on the determination of the optimal LED wavelengths and bandwidths is also studied.     

A novel spectrum‐sequential display design with a wide color gamut and reduced color breakup

Abstract— The advantage of RGB color‐sequential displays is that they have no color filters, but the disadvantage is that they need to run at high refresh rates (> >180 Hz) to prevent flicker and color breakup. An alternative color‐sequential display, which can operate at relatively low refresh rates (～ 100 Hz) without disturbing color breakup or flicker, has been developed. The display has two color filters per pixel (cyan and magenta) on the LCD panel and the backlight can generate two types of spectra (blue‐green and green‐red), which results in a wide gamut four‐primary display, effectively. One part of the paper describes the color reproduction, including color‐filter design, gamut mapping, and multi‐primary conversion. The other part deals with the reduced perception of color breakup on the novel spectrum‐sequential display compared to conventional color‐sequential displays.     

Color displays and flexible displays using quick‐response liquid‐powder technology for electronic paper

Abstract— Color displays and flexible displays that use electronic liquid powder have been developed. Novel types of color displays using either a colored powder or a color filter are discussed. We have also developed a flexible display with low‐cost substrate films with a high‐throughput roll‐to‐roll manufacturing method. These technologies enable a QR‐LPD to be widely used as an electronic‐paper display.     

A field‐sequential‐color display with a local‐primary‐desaturation backlight scheme

Abstract— Field‐sequential‐color technology eliminates the need for color filters in liquid‐crystal displays (LCDs) and results in significant power savings and higher resolution. But the LCD suffers from color breakup, which degrades image quality and limits practical applications. By controlling the backlight temporally and spatially, a so‐called local‐primary‐desaturation (LPD) backlight scheme was developed and implemented in a 180‐Hz optically compensated bend (OCB) mode LCD equipped with a backlight consisting of a matrix of light‐emitting diodes (LEDs). It restores image quality by suppressing color breakup and saves power because it has no color filter and uses local dimming. A perceptual experiment was implemented for verification, and the results showed that a field‐sequential‐color display with a local‐primary‐desaturation backlight reduced the color breakup from very annoying to not annoying and even invisible.     

A dual‐gap RGBW transflective TFT‐LCD with adjustable color gamut

Abstract— An adjustable‐color‐gamut dual‐gap RGBW transflective liquid‐crystal display that uses a four‐color manufacturing process and a color‐processing algorithm to achieve the appropriate color performance in both the transmissive and reflective modes is presented. Based on superior‐color‐transformation units, the total brightness and color gamut can be modified under different ambience. The highest NTSC color gamut in the reflective mode (reflectance, 4.4%) that has been fabricated successfully for a RGBW 1.5‐in. dual‐gap panel is 23% with a 7%, 17%, and 40% NTSC color gamut in the transmissive mode by using different algorithms. Compared to a typical RGB panel, it not only provides flexibility for any environment but also satisfies a variety of personal requirements. Based on personal preference, users have more choices to adjust the LCD settings such as color saturation, brightness, etc. The smart RGBW TRLCD will definitely become the developing trend towards sunlight‐readable LCDs in the near future.     

Color‐breakup evaluation of spatio‐temporal color displays with two‐ and three‐color fields

Abstract— Spatio‐temporal color displays have higher transmission and resolution than conventional LCDs, but suffer from color breakup. In this paper, a 120‐Hz display with two‐color filters and two‐color fields is described and the amount of color breakup is compared with that of a 180‐Hz full‐color‐sequential display with no color filters and three‐color fields. The results indicate that color breakup in a color‐filterless display is annoying, whereas it is just visible in displays with two‐color filters even though the refresh rate is much lower.     

Multi‐primary‐color LCD: Its characteristics and extended applications

Abstract— The development of multi‐primary‐color (MPC) display systems is one of the big paradigm shifts in recent display technologies and induces new potentials of display devices. The development of MPC display systems for different goals is briefly reviewed. Especially, by employing MPC systems, it is possible to reproduce the real material colors faithfully and efficiently. For signal processing, MPC systems have a big advantage in the so‐called color‐reproduction redundancy. A number of applications can be derived from this characteristic, such as improving the viewing‐angle dependency issue and power savings. On the other hand, MPC systems have a typical trade‐off versus RGB‐standardized input signals, especially for reproducing bright green. New algorithms to moderate this trade‐off on MPC systems by employing color‐reproduction redundancy are proposed. The goal of our algorithms is to maintain the compatibility with RGB‐based input signals though the initial display design so that the characteristics of MPC systems are not changed or lost. These algorithms indicate that MPC display systems are applicable not only for a specifically limited objective but also for other applications, e.g., TV broadcasting.     

Wide gamut LCD using locally dimmable four‐primary‐color LED backlight

This paper proposes a wide gamut LCD using locally dimmable four‐primary‐color (4PC) LED backlight. Although the color gamut of LCDs has been improved in recent years, it is insufficient to reproduce all the colors in the real world. The objective of this paper is to propose a wide gamut LCD that reproduces all the colors in the real world while keeping the cost increases to a minimum. We evaluated the color gamut reproduced by LEDs of multiple primary colors and selected cyan as the optimal color to be added to the three primary colors to reproduce all the colors in the real world. Therefore, we designed an LED backlight consisting of an additional only‐cyan LED with three‐primary‐color LEDs and developed a prototype LCD with 4PC LED backlight. Furthermore, we developed a local dimming algorithm for the 4PC LED backlight. As a result, we confirmed that the prototype LCD with the 4PC LED backlight is able to cover almost all the colors in the real world and also able to display natural images with highly saturated colors by local dimming.     

Spatial gamut mapping algorithms for cross‐display color reproduction

Abstract— Owing to the fast developments of computer networks and color imaging technologies, there is a tendency towards remote proofing in the printing or textile industries. More cases such as cross‐display color matching will occur in the future information society. The problems of color mismatching we usually find in cross‐display devices have been widely discussed today. In this paper, to achieve equivalent color matching between a sRGB monitor and an Adobe RGB monitor, the spatial gamut mapping algorithm (SGMA), which introduces sigmoidal tone mapping, multi‐mapping paths, and unsharp mask (USM) operation into a sRGB color‐management system, is proposed. According to the designs of USM locations, this proposed SGMA can be further developed into pre‐USM, post‐USM, and double‐USM types. Besides, two critical image characteristics, edge map and color histogram, are investigated to establish the relationship between image content and SGMA. The psychophysical experimental results show that double‐USM SGMA obtains better color matching than the other spatial types.     

Psychophysical evaluations of a current multi‐view 3‐D display: Its advantages in glossiness reproduction

Abstract— Although two‐view 3‐D displays requiring stereo glasses are on the market, the shape of objects they present is distorted when the observer's head moves. This problem can be solved by using a (passive) multi‐view 3‐D display because such a display can produce motion parallax. Another problem has to do with the surface quality of the presented object, but little is known about the fidelity of such displays as far as the surface quality goes. Previously, it was found that a two‐view 3‐D display has a problem in which glossiness deteriorates when the observer's head moves and that it can be alleviated by using a head tracker, whose data enables the display to produce correct motion parallax and luminance changes when the viewer's head moves. Here, it was determined whether this problem can be solved by using commercially available multi‐view 3‐D displays, whose finite number of viewpoints and certain amount of cross‐talk, however, make luminance changes inexact and smaller than they should be. It was found that this display can solve the problem to a certain extent.     

The color properties of a reflective CMYK module using polymer‐dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC)

A reflective CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) module using polymer‐dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) is investigated for multi‐color reflective display. Combined with the electro‐optical properties and visible spectral reflectivity of PDLC films, the color properties of the reflective CMYK module were evaluated in terms of the Uniform Color Space‐CIE 1976 L*a*b*. It is found that the blue light reflectivity of the PDLC films is lower than green light and red light reflectivity. With the increase of the voltage applied on PDLC, the color lightness of the CMYK module generally decreases, while the color saturation increases. When the voltage changed from 0 to 70 V with a 5‐V change amplitude, modules C, M, Y, and K severally exhibit at least five, six, three, and seven colors.     

High performance color‐converted micro‐LED displays

A full‐color micro‐LED display can be achieved by red, green, and blue (RGB) chips or by a blue/ultraviolet (UV) micro‐LED array to pump downconverters. The latter helps relieve the burden of epitaxial growth of tri‐color micro‐LED chips. However, such a color‐converted micro‐LED system usually suffers from color crosstalk and low efficiency due to limited optical density of color converters. With funnel‐tube array and reflective coating on its inner surface, the crosstalk is eliminated, and the optical efficiency can be improved by more than two times. In addition, the ambient contrast ratio is also improved because of higher light intensity. The color gamut of this device is approximately 92% of DCI‐P3 standard.     

Multi‐primary design of spectrally accurate displays

Abstract— Spectral color reproduction overcomes some inherent problems of colorimetric reproduction. An implementation of a spectral display for surface color reproduction, capable of reproducing a desired spectrum for each pixel, based on multi‐primary projection technology, is presented. A light source with a spectrum identical to that of the illumination is filtered by a positive linear combination of several color filters, which reproduces the reflectance spectra. The spectra of the color filters are tailored to span the space of possible surface spectra. Various methods for choosing the color filters vis‐à‐vis the required performance are discussed in detail. Soft‐proofing application is examined as a test case for the concept.     

Color error from an RGB‐stripe pixel structure

Abstract— Most direct‐view color displays have a sub‐pixel structure similar to the RGB‐stripe structure. The video data for R and B are produced on the condition that they are reproduced at the same position as G but they are displayed on the screen with 1/3 of a pixel separation from the corresponding G pixel. This pixel structure thus entails a convergence error of 1/3 of a pixel. The modified s‐CIELAB method was applied to investigate color errors produced by the RGB‐stripe pixel structure. The results show that the pixel structure can degrade the image quality even for a viewing distance where the pixel structure is not visible because the color difference caused by the structure has a low‐frequency component and the human vision can detect it. The same method was applied to the convergence error and it was shown that the necessary convergence accuracy is around 1/4 of a pixel.     

Color‐gamut expansion in CRTs

Abstract— This paper describes the architecture for a color picture tube (CPT), which enables a cost‐effective expansion of the color gamut. Besides a gamut expansion based on application of more‐saturated phosphors in the present three‐primary system, four‐ and five‐primary systems are described. Gun‐pitch modulation allows the application of a conventional electron gun for both a four‐ and five‐primary CRT. In these systems, the mask and matrix transmissions need to be reduced to maintain color purity. From this point of view, a five‐primary CRT is unrealistic. Two four‐primary CRTs are evaluated in more detail. But, here, the total anode current to generate white has to be increased substantially because of the reduced mask and matrix transmissions. Nonetheless, in this paper it is argued that with one of the four‐primary CRTs more‐saturated yellow colors can be displayed at 85% of the display luminance of a conventional system without loss of perceived sharpness.     

The influence of unilateral acceleration on color‐gamut properties of a TFT‐LCD

Abstract— This letter describes experiments in which a TFT‐LCD was exposed to unilateral acceleration amplitudes of different temporal profiles and durations. The results show that the color gamut is extended by increasing the load amplitude. Following the loading, the color gamut recedes and gradually approaches the reference range.