More than 10 million Americans suffer from color deficient vision. This deficiency can adversely effect job performance and make it more difficult to distinguish traffic signal lights. We will develop a series of filters that are designed to improve various degrees of deuteranomalous color vision. The recent identification of the gene sequences responsible for shifting human color cone pigments has resulted in a much more accurate view of the cone pigment shifts responsible for color deficient vision. We have developed a mathematical model for mapping colors as seen by color deficient individuals to a standard color space, based on the spectral shifts of color deficient cones. This model allows us to design and evaluate color corrective efficiency for a wide variety of colors and illuminants. These filters, unlike other corrective filters that have been used for treating color deficiency, will be designed to improve the hue and saturation for varying degrees of deuteranomalous vision. We will identify deuteranomalous test subjects using an Anomaloscope and the D-15 hue test, design filters that shift the chromaticity of the colors as close to normal vision as possible, manufacture corrective eyewear, and re-test the subjects with and without the corrective filters.
The corrective filters developed during this grant should greatly improve the ability of color deficient individuals to distinguish colors. With the proper diagnosis and prescription by a trained clinician we estimate the global market for color corrective eyewear to be several million dollars per year.
