AIC Annual Report 2012

EDITOR’S NOTES

This year we have decided to change the name of this publication from AIC Newsletter to AIC Annual Report. It is appropriate because in these pages is an account of the whole year’s activity during 2011 of all the Member Societies and Study Groups of the AIC. Thank you very much to all the contributors, who have provided so much interesting content about colourful activities world-wide.
Some of the highlights from member societies in this issue include research into cave paintings in Argentina (p.11), a project to introduce colour landscaping into a social housing estate in Chile (p.15), a conference celebrating ’80 years of colorimetry’ in Germany (p.18), the Korea Color Awards for excellence in design (p.22), the award of a national patent for a Portuguese device for measuring perceived colour in architectural applications (p.25), a very successful conference in Spain on the appearance of automotive paint (p.27), a new commercial software package in Thailand enabling a scanner to be used as a colorimeter (p.31), and a tangible display in the USA for visualising changes in surface lighting and material appearance (p.32). We also salute the tremendous growth and vibrancy of the Gruppo del Colore, our new Associate Member in Italy (p.34).
The highlight of the AIC year was the meeting in Zurich (p.9), hosted by the Swiss member society pro/colore. The rather sombre auditorium was magically transformed through projections of coloured light onto the long sidewalls, with stunning graphic designs. The patterns changed continually in colour and form, but in such a subtle and ingenious way that they never interfered visually with the presentations on the big screen at the front. It was a marvellous example of environmental colour design and exemplified the meeting theme ‘Interaction of Colour & Light in the Arts and Sciences’. It was somehow appropriate that in the gallery below there was an exhibition of the photographs of Henri Cartier Bresson, the master of capturing the decisive moment.
It was a particular pleasure at AIC 2011 to witness the award of the prestigious Judd Medal to Dr Lucia Ronchi (p.10), whose encyclopædic knowledge of vision science is legendary. Many in the AIC community, including myself, have benefited from her advice and guidance.
In September I was privileged to attend the 10th Anniversary celebrations of ColorLab at Gjøvik University College, Norway. This was an opportunity to honour the achievements of Prof Jon Hardeberg, who founded the lab on his return to Norway in 2001, and has since led a series of innovative colour research projects and inspired a host of students and post doctoral researchers. In particular he has been a key member of the CREATE network and the European CIMET Master’s Course ‘Colour in Informatics and Media Technology’.
It was an honour in November to attend the ISCC Special Topics meeting in San Jose (p.32), held jointly with the Society for Imaging Science & Technology (IS&T) and the Society for Information Display (SID) after the Color Imaging Conference. This marked the 15th anniversary of the publication of the sRGB colour space, and provided the opportunity to reflect on the success and almost universal adoption of sRGB. Currently used colour spaces were discussed from the perspective of scientific and technological advances of the past 15 years, such as HDR imaging and multi-primary displays. It is instructive to observe how a standard based on old television CRT displays has become so embedded in the modern digital world.

– Lindsay MacDonald, Editor