Helping the Color-Blind Differentiate Colors

An augmented reality application for the iPhone and Android system is aiding colorblind people discriminate between colors.

The DanKam augmented reality application assists its users in determining colors, or differences in colors that would otherwise be invisible to them. The device is based on a theory of the human visual system, which states that visual processing is done on the pure color (the hue) of an observed image. The theory states that there are relatively few hues the visual system actually sees, but for the color blind, hue determination is impeded by slight changes in the eye. The DanKam application, through its various modes, is optimized for the most common form of color blindness--anomalous trichromancy--in which differentiation between reds and greens is affected.


It does so by tweaking sets of filters in an attempt to make the hues easier to detect, by automatically converting colors in the image, which normally cannot be differentiated by people who are colorblind to colors, which can be differentiated. Among the functions in can perform are hue quantization, the conversion of all colors to a more basic set of basic colors; MaxS, which increases the saturation of colors; daltonization, which make reds pinker, while increasing the strength of green; and an H->V function, which translates red through magenta to a black through white scale. Calibration can be done based on the Ishihara tests, which are the gold standard for detecting color blindness.

"As experimental technology, DanKam is designed to allow an unusual amount of "tweaking,” in the hopes that users will discover particularly effective settings,” writes Dankam developer Dan Kaminski in his blog, and is available on the iTunes store.

Related Links:
Dan Kaminski
Dankam app on iTunes store