Hi,
I am new to the field of color study, but am learning to use the mica Toolbox to answer a question related to how color components change in insects living in environments with different degrees of disturbance. For this I used micaToolbox to quantify the colors of the thorax and abdomen of these insects, and the values that the program gives me are luminosity (for human vision), RNormalised mean, GNormalised mean, and BNormalised mean. My question is: can I use these values to evaluate the coloration changes of these insects in the disturbance gradient (using a glm for example, with the color variables as the response variable)? Or is there a way to calculate hue, intensity and saturation values from the values that Mica toolbox gives me?
Thanks a lot!
Hi Catalina,
If you are simply after documenting a change (rather than the perceptual significance of the change) in the looks of your environments you can totally use the linearised & normalised R/G/B values. You could use the CIE l*a*b space for example by translating your R/G/B values, that way you would be able to obtain a meaningful measure of intensity etc. Else, assuming that you have obtained sufficiently calibrated images, you could use a human cone mapping model to translate your R/G/B values into photoreceptor stimulation. That would then allow you to use the RNL model, which in turn is the go-to solution to infer the potential perceptual significance of changes. The user guides on this page and the original publications should be able to guide your efforts! Also, have a look at publications having done similar kinds of assessments (some might be listed on the site here).
Cheers,
Cedric