Abstract
When luminances of pixels in the blue-black/white-gold dress image were plotted on the MacLeod-Boynton chromaticity diagram they appeared to have two clusters. They corresponded to the white/blue and the gold/black parts. The approach we took to solve the dress problem was to apply our optimal color hypothesis to estimate an illuminant in the dress image. In the optimal color hypothesis, the visual system picks the optimal color distribution, which best fits to the scene luminance distribution. The peak of the best-fit optimal color distribution corresponds to the illuminant chromaticity. We tried to find the best-fit optimal color distribution to the dress color distribution. When illuminant level was assumed to be low, the best-fit color temperature was high (20000K). Under this dark-blue illuminant the dress colors should look white-gold. When illuminant level was assumed to be high, the lower temperature optimal color distribution (5000K) fitted the best. Under this bright-white illuminant the dress colors should appear blue-black. Thus, for the dress image the best-fit optimal color distribution changed depending on illuminant intensity. This dual-stable illuminant estimations may cause the individual difference in appearance of the dress. If you choose a bright (or dark) illuminant the dress appears blue-black (or white-gold). When the chromaticity of the dress was rotated in 180 degree in the chromaticity diagram it appeared blue-gold without individual difference. In this case the optimal color hypothesis predicted an illuminant with almost no ambiguity. We tested individual differences using simple patterns in experiments. The results supported our prediction.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2016