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Description of additive colour mixing exhibits by using PC-designed Maxwell discs

2006; IOP Publishing; Volume: 41; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1088/0031-9120/41/5/012

1361-6552

J. A. Maroto, C M Peñalver Valverde, J E Bueno-González Tejero,

Color Science and Applications

One of the simplest but most effective tools for studying additive colour mixing and complementary colours is the colour top, which is a rapidly spinning disc whose visible surface has been coloured. The spinning of the disc visually mixes the light reflected by the different colours on the disc to produce the illusion of a single pure hue. In this work we have used a commercial PC program (Corel Photo-Paint 9) to design a collection of coloured discs. The characteristics of this program have permitted us to select the most suitable primary colours and the development of an analytical method to calculate the relative proportions of each primary colour necessary to produce a wide variety of colours. We recommend these spectacular visual exhibits for educational purposes in order to show both additive colour mixing and the colour vision mechanism.