Detection of color transparency

Philippe Colantoni, Michael D'Zmura, Kenneth Knoblauch, Bernard Laget

Abstract: Observers can separate the color properties of a transparent filter from the color properties of underlying surfaces. The chromatic changes which elicit an impression of transparency include translations and convergences in color space. Neither rotations nor shears in color space lead to perceived transparency. Results of matching experiments show that isoluminant translations, which cannot be generated by episcotister or filter models, give rise to the perception of transparency. This implies that systematic luminance variation is not needed for transparency to be perceived. We describe here an algorithm for detecting transparency using graphs. A circuit through an image's X-junctions which is both spatially and chromatically coherent is identified as a contour of at transparent region.