42 Technology’s Euan Smith to present breakthrough colour measurement tech at Display Week 2024

Dr Euan Smith, head of systems and photonics at 42 Technology has been invited to present a review paper on one of the industry’s hottest topics at this year’s Display Week (12 to 17 May; San Jose, USA).  Display Week is the world’s biggest industry event for the electronics display market, worth over US $120 billion.

Euan’s paper – ‘Assessing Colour Capability with Gamut Ring Intersection’ – discusses a new, more informative technique for visualising the range of reproducible colours (or colour gamut) of electronic display media.  His paper is one of several in a special session dedicated to the approach, which is now being proposed as a new international standard to help manufacturers achieve better colour consistency across different output devices.

His paper is one of only 28 to be nominated as a distinguished contribution to this year’s technical symposium from a total of over 600 oral and poster papers.  As a result, it will be published in a special issue of the Journal of the Society for Information Display distributed to everyone attending the event.

“Euan is well known within 42T and by our clients for his expertise in optics and data analysis.  But I don’t think any of us were completely aware of his pioneering work in assessingcolour capability.  His Display Week presentation on using gamut ring plots is now the third time he’s been recognised as making a distinguished contribution, underscoring his pivotal role in developing this breakthrough approach,” said Jon Spratley, CEO at 42 Technology.

The gamut ring framework was first proposed by Dr Kenichiro Masaoka of Japan’s national broadcaster NHK who has partnered with Euan and others to develop it as a better way of assessing colour capability.  

The problem is that although humans perceive colour in three dimensions, based on hue, saturation and brightness, displays are still typically characterised using two-dimensional chromaticity plots that cannot fully quantify the achievable colour range.  This limitation makes it difficult for product manufacturers to easily assess whether a display component that they have specified for a product can actually deliver the required performance.

Euan has developed algorithms and software tools used to calculate and generate two-dimensional (2D) gamut plots and has made them open source so they are publicly available.  He is also project co-lead with Dr Masaoka within a working group of the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission)to develop gamut ring plots as a new international standard.  The aim being to give product manufacturers an approved way of better assessing the colour capability of the components they are purchasing.

The first new IEC standard is being developed for laser projectors used in home and commercial cinemas but it is expected also to be developed for other display types.  Gamut ring plots can just as easily assess the colour capability of any display media, such as computer screens, flat screen TVs and printed materials, potentially leading to a series of new global standards for other products too.

In addition to Display Week, Euan will also present a SID webinar (Society for Information Display) explaining the benefits of gamut ring over chromaticity plots on Tuesday 23 July at 1900 hrs UK time.