2008 International Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering

A Study on the Stability and Uniformity of LCD

Xiaoqiao Huang, Junsheng Shi
Color and Image Vision Laboratory
Yunnan Normal University
Kunming, China
[email protected]

Abstract—Liquid Crystal Display(LCD) plays a more and more and uniformity of LCD. The white point were set to luminance
critical role for color transformation and reproduction of cross D65 calibrated by X-Rite eyeone pro colorimeter, which was
media, but the influences upon the stability and spatial used for all color measurement on the LCD in this experiment.
uniformity of LCD have been neglected for many users in The monitor were set up middle brightness and maximum
practice. In this paper, 24 color test samples were measured and contrast, 1680x1050 at 60 Hz, and full 24-bit color resolution.
computed at 9 different places for study on the stability and The display was driven using the Matrox P650 video
spatial uniformity of LCD, the results show that the stability of controller. The video LUTs of the video controller were set to
LCD has a satisfying result, the best time for colorimetric gamma of 2.2 (Adobe Standard) using the "Adobe Gamma"
characterization and other special colorimetric measurement is
software.
about 4 hours from turn-on. The spatial uniformity of LCD is
illustrated by distributions of the color-differences between the LCD’s absolute luminance was measured by screen
ambient and the center, which are from 0.67 to 5.08 ΔE unit of photometer, ST-86LA, produced by the Photoelectric
CAM02-SCD. Instrument Factory of Beijing Normal University, China.
Keywords- Liquid Crystal Display(LCD); stability; spatial As with all LCD displays, the appearance of the displays is
uniformity; CIECAM02; CAM02-SCD angular dependent. To ensure a consistent evaluation of each
display, all measurements were made at a 0° incident angle.
I. INTRODUCTION The measurements were taken in a dark room.
As a result of significant cost and quality improvements
Liquid Crystal Displays(LCD) are poised to replace cathode- B. Stability Measurement
ray-tubes(CRT) as the primary computer display. While LCD The stability of LCD includes two aspects: firstly,
originally found a niche in portable computers on account of chromaticity stability, that means LCD’ chromaticity don’t
their compact size and low power consumption, they are now change at a certain moment after turning on it; secondly,
available at increasingly higher spatial-resolutions and in larger chromaticity repeatability, which means LCD’ chromaticity
screen sizes with image quality that meets or exceeds that of can be repeated at the same time with the same color
typical CRT.[1] samples in different start-up status. Generally, chromaticity
At present, electronic commerce is becoming more and repeatability can be described by mean color-difference from
more widerly used, such as online shopping , thus color LCD the mean (MCDM) metrics calculated in terms of CIE LAB
monitors must be controlled for accurate cross-media color color-difference.
image reproduction, however colorimetric characterization of In order to achieve these objectives, all measurements were
LCD is the basis of controlling color reproduction accurately, performed on a series of large central uniform square patches
which has become an important research topic [2,3]. A series of (approximately 300x300 pixels, which were made accordingly
methods about colorimetric characterization of LCD have been as Macbeth ColorChecker rendition chart’RGB value) with the
researched by Fairchild, Sharma, Gibson Jason et al..[2-8] In remainder of the display filled with a medium gray background
these researches, a few of the studies investigated the spatial represented by RGB digital counts of (128, 128, 128). These
uniformity of LCD, but studies looking at on the stability and patch colors were showed on LCD taking turns, CIE Yxy and
spatial uniformity of LCD at the same time were few until now. CIE XYZ were measured by X-Rite colorimeter, at the time,
In this paper, two LCD monitors were investigated, the stability 0min, 10min, 20min, 35min, 50min, 80min, 110min, 170min,
was measured by instruments at different times and the spatial 230min, 320min and 410min after turning on the monitor. Each
uniformity was computed by a new color-difference formula of them was measured three times. Three days later, repeated
CAM02-SCD [9] for CIECAM02 [10] in 9 different places. measuring again, six days later, did them again.

II. EXPERIMENTAL METHODS C. Spatial Uniformity Measurement

If the whole screen is used to display images, the spatial
A. Color Measurement Instrument and Monitor Setup uniformity of the monitor becomes a very important factor [11].
Two LCD monitors, the Philips 200WC and the ViewSonic The spatial uniformity refers to the impact that a color
VG2021wm monitor were measured to illustrate the stability displayed on one area of the monitor has on another color.
*Send all correspondence to: Xiaoqiao Huang (e-mail:
[email protected])

978-0-7695-3336-0/08 $25.00 © 2008 IEEE 282

DOI 10.1109/CSSE.2008.607
Authorized licensed use limited to: KU Leuven Libraries. Downloaded on May 01,2024 at 10:43:12 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
Clearly, a monitor with poor spatial uniformity cannot produce III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
reliable color stimuli since the colors displayed on another area
of the screen will impact the colorimetry of a test stimulus. A. Stability
To evaluate it, all measurements were made after Because all the results were measured by X-Rite
approximately 4 hours of warm up time for the display, the colorimeter, the accuracy of the colorimeter played an
screen of a LCD monitor was divided into 9 parts for study, important role. Red, green, blue color was put in the center of
shown in Fig. 1. According to it, 24 images were tailored by LCD in sequence, CIE XYZ, CIE Yxy were measured five
Photoshop CS, that each image contains nine pieces of the times. Accuracy with standard deviation of the colorimeter in
same color on the same gray background represented by RGB the short time is shown in Table Ⅰ . The result for both
digital counts of (128, 128, 128), the color of 24 images was analyses were indicated that measurement error was small, X-
decided by Macbeth ColorChecker rendition chart’RGB value. Rite colorimeter could meet the needs of the experiment.
For every image, CIE XYZ were measured by X-Rite
colorimeter three times, then, computed the color-difference TABLE I. ACCURACY WITH STANDARD DEVIATION OF THE
between every piece of color at different place and the color in COLORIMETER
the center(No.5) by color-difference formula for CAM02-SCD.
Δx Δy ΔX ΔY ΔZ
Mean
0.0001 0.0002 0.0237 0.0416 0.0230
deviation
Maximal
0.0002 0.0003 0.0533 0.1267 0.0500
deviation
Minimal
0.0000 0.0000 0.0133 0.0200 0.0178
deviation
According to the data measured for the color of 24 test
samples on the Philips monitor, it is clear that the chromaticity
stability of Philips LCD was not the same for different colors,
the time achieving stability was different based on different test
samples, the red test sample achieves stability earlier, only
needs about 50 minutes, and the most of test samples become
Figure 1. Distributions of 9 different places on LCD
stability after 110minutes from turn-on. Furthermore, the

TABLE II. CIE YXY OF LCDS MONITOR WITH TIME FROM TURN-ON
time 0 10 20 35 50 80 110 170 230 320
x 0.6466 0.6460 0.6457 0.6444 0.6440 0.6441 0.6442 0.6439 0.6438 0.6442
R y 0.3338 0.3337 0.3338 0.3342 0.3343 0.3342 0.3345 0.3344 0.3342 0.3343
Y 34.615 32.652 30.698 27.965 26.284 24.115 23.147 22.745 22.556 22.495
x 0.2931 0.2924 0.2920 0.2904 0.2894 0.2882 0.2881 0.2882 0.2883 0.2282
G y 0.5656 0.5706 0.5729 0.5767 0.5790 0.5713 0.5817 0.5818 0.5816 0.5816
Y 71.548 66.778 62.191 55.403 51.512 46.787 44.746 44.046 43.618 43.523
x 0.1427 0.1424 0.1419 0.1416 0.1410 0.1407 0.1408 0.1406 0.1409 0.1408
B y 0.0717 0.0724 0.0727 0.0723 0.0715 0.0712 0.0715 0.0717 0.0713 0.0717
Y 8.726 8.086 7.513 6.636 6.137 5.478 5.163 5.096 5.086 5.071

variety for chromaticity x and y was not obvious, some of them gamut. As Fig. 2 illustrates, some of test samples’ CIE Yxy
increased as time went by, while some decreased, even, some data were changed to be smaller with the time, but some larger.
increased at the beginning and decreased in the end. The 0.7
luminance Y reduced continuously, and become be almost
steady till 170minutes. The results on the ViewSonic monitors 0.6

were almost consistent. According to further computing, 0.5

overall the average MCDM was 0.12 on Philips monitor and 0.4

0.16 on ViewSonic monitor after 230 minutes form turn-on,

y

indicating that it is very satisfactory for display. So we think

0.3

that the best time for measurement is about 4 hours from turn- 0.2

on, in order to obtain accurate data for colorimetric 0.1

characterization of LCD. 0
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8

The raw data measured was very large, and only red, green
x

and blue color test sample’s CIE Yxy data from all 24 test Figure 2. Distributions of 24 test samples with different time in the
samples on Philips monitor were chosen to be put here, as LCD monitor color gamut
shown in Table Ⅱ. Fig. 2 showed the distributions of 24 test
samples with different time in the Philips LCD monitor color

283

Authorized licensed use limited to: KU Leuven Libraries. Downloaded on May 01,2024 at 10:43:12 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 CIE XYZ were measured repeatedly at the same time after TABLE IV. PARAMETERS OF THE CIECAM02 COLOR APPEARANCE
MODEL
turning on the monitor in different days. We chose three test
samples from the data randomly, computed the MCDM, the XW YW ZW Yb c NC
F LA
results showed an overall the average MCDM of 0.58 on
187.02 195.78 214.04 20.0 1.0 0.69 1.0 167
Philips monitor and 0.46 on ViewSonic monitor. This indicated
that chromaticity repeatability of the LCD used in this
experiment was not very well. Contour of color difference
9 5.28 5.8 4.75 3.69 4.22
5.28
B. Spatial Uniformity 5.8 5.8
8 5.28
3.69
The results of the color-difference between the ambient 8
color patch and the center color patch with Philips monitor 7 6
6
5.8
were showed in Table Ⅲ. In the experiment, the CIECAM02 4.75
6
color appearance model [10] was computed with the 4.22 0.528 4.7

Height
parameters in Table Ⅳ, CAM02-SCD [9] was used as color- 5 1.06
1.58
2.11

difference formula. 2.64

5
4 5.28

Based on further analysis of the color-difference values 6.33

6.86 6
from Table Ⅲ, indicated that, color-difference values were 3
5.8
different at different places with the same test sample, and also 2
2.64 3.17
6
different at the same place with different test samples. It was 4.75 5.2
4.22 3.69
concluded that the spatial uniformity of LCD was not well 1
2 4 6 8 10 12 14
from the average color-differences values 1.75～3.78 ΔE unit Width

of CAM02-SCD, and the reproducibility of LCD was Figure 3. Contour of color-differences between the ambient and the
discrepant with different color. The results with the ViewSonic center screen of the Philips monitor
monitor were almost consistent, though the values of color-
difference were smaller and not the same.
Contour of color difference
9 1.04 0.347 1.39 1.04
1.04 0.695 2.08
1.74 0.695
TABLE III. CAM02-SCD COLOR-DIFFERENCES OF 9 PLACES WITH 24 1.39
1.74
2.78
3.47 3.13 2
TEST SAMPLES 8
2.08
2.43
0.695 3
place 7
patch 1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 3.13
3.1
1.04
6
Dark Skin 2.95 1.72 2.71 2.41 1.96 2.75 3.24 2.12
Height

Light Skin 4.60 3.35 4.11 3.49 3.61 3.26 1.14 2.80 5 0.347
Bolu Sky 3.79 3.00 3.04 3.12 2.26 2.44 1.31 2.94 3.4
3.82
Foliage 3.39 2.89 2.90 2.51 1.79 2.14 0.67 1.67 4
3.47
Blue Flower 4.42 3.30 3.88 3.73 2.96 3.51 1.64 2.59
3
Bluish Green 4.03 3.28 3.95 3.24 3.53 2.79 1.82 2.64 3.82
4
Orange 3.77 2.85 3.65 3.27 3.39 2.95 1.95 2.83 2 3.82
Purplish Blue 2.30 1.99 1.64 1.58 1.00 1.50 0.85 0.80 3.82 4
3.13 4.52 4.17
Moderate- 1
4.52
4.16 2.77 3.94 3.42 3.32 3.10 1.65 2.86 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Red Width
Purple 2.50 1.70 2.45 1.84 4.99 1.87 1.12 1.72
Yellow Green 4.30 3.30 3.94 3.46 3.49 3.03 2.33 2.83 Figure 4. Contour of color-differences between the ambient and
Orange- the center screen of the ViewSonic monitor
4.18 3.13 3.82 3.23 3.45 2.92 1.91 2.97
Yellow
Blue 2.24 1.71 1.66 1.74 1.35 1.52 0.86 0.94 For showing the spatial uniformity intuitively, 135 patches
Green 4.04 3.48 3.20 2.72 2.28 2.32 1.76 1.53 (15×9 for all the screen of LCD) with the same color(chose
Red 4.13 2.71 3.50 3.25 2.75 2.81 1.59 2.68
orange, R=164, G=131 and B=196 in this experiment)were
Yellow 4.43 3.54 3.93 3.61 3.47 3.32 2.35 2.93
Magenta 4.29 2.98 3.72 3.52 3.05 3.10 1.71 3.07
measured and computed, the distributions of the color-
Cyan 4.01 3.49 3.29 3.05 2.40 2.70 1.18 2.00
differences between the ambient and the center were shown in
White 4.00 3.80 4.61 3.72 3.54 4.03 2.47 3.28 Fig. 3 (Philips) and Fig. 4 (ViewSonic). It is clear from Fig. 3
Neutral 8 4.68 4.34 4.97 4.85 3.96 5.08 4.07 4.38 and Fig. 4 that the distributions of the color difference are
Neutral6.5 4.76 3.57 3.84 4.39 3.31 4.15 1.88 3.56 irregularly, in the center, the values are smaller, but the
Neutral 5 4.36 2.91 3.06 3.71 2.50 3.77 1.75 3.08 ambient are not symmetrical.
Neutral3.5 2.86 1.73 2.43 2.82 2.09 3.20 1.32 2.40
Black 2.56 1.89 2.35 2.80 1.99 3.06 1.31 2.29 IV. CONCLUSIONS
mean 3.78 2.89 3.36 3.14 2.85 2.97 1.75 2.54
Standard The stability of LCD has a satisfying result, the
0.77 0.71 0.81 0.74 0.88 0.78 0.75 0.79 chromaticity and luminance become be almost steady after 170
Deviation
minutes, the best time for measurement is about 4 hours from

284

Authorized licensed use limited to: KU Leuven Libraries. Downloaded on May 01,2024 at 10:43:12 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
turn-on. The chromaticity spatial uniformity of LCD is not [4] E. Jason. Gibson and Mark D. Fairchild, “Colorimetric Characterization
well, the differences from the ambient to the center are obvious of Three Computer Displays (LCD and CRT) ,” Rochester, NY, USA:
Munsell Color Science Laboratory, January, 2000.
and irregularly. For better accuracy with colorimetric
[5] WANG Yong, XU Hai-song, “The S Shape Model for LCD
characterization of LCD, these should be considered. The Colorimetric Characterization,” Journal of Image and Graphics, vol. 12,
results in this experiment are obtained with the LCD used in no. 3, pp. 491-494, 2007.(in chinese)
this experiment, and there are differences with different LCD. [6] Nobuhiko Tamura, Norimichi Tsumura, Yoichi Miyake, “Masking
model for accurate colorimetric characterization of LCD,” Journal of the
SID, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 1–7, 2003.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
[7] HUANG Qing-mei, ZHAO Da-zun, GUO Jing, “Analysis on color
This work is funded by grants from the National Science characterization and calibration of LCD,” OPTICAL TECHNIQUE, vol.
Foundation of China (grant number 60368001). 31, no. 2, pp. 243-245, 2005. (in chinese)
[8] Y. Kwak, L. MacDonald, “Characterisation of a desktop LCD projecto,”
Displays, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 179—194, 2000.
REFERENCES
[9] M. Ronnier Luo, Guihua Cui, Changjun Li, “Uniform Colour Spaces
[1] G. Sharma, “Comparative evaluation of color characterization and gamut Based on CIECAM02 Colour Appearance Model,” Color Res. Appl., vol.
of LCDs versus CRTs”, Proc. SPIE, Color Imaging: Device-Independent 31, no. 4,pp. 320-330, August 2006.
Color, Color Hardcopy, and Applications VII, Eschbach, R. and Marcu, [10] Nathan Moroney, Mark D. Fairchild and R.W.G. Hunt et al. “The
G. Ed., Vol.4663, pp. 177-186, 2002. CIECAM02 Color Appearance Model,” IS&T/ISD’s Tenth Color
[2] G. Sharma, “LCDs versus CRTs color calibration and gamut Imaging Conference, pp. 23-27, 2002.
considerations,” Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 90, no. 4, pp. 605 -622, [11] M. A. Garcia-Per´ez, “Self-calibrating monitors,” Information Display,
2002. vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 201–215, 1996.
[3] M. D. Fairchild, D. Wyble, “Colorimetric characterization of apple
studio display( flat panel LCD),” Rochester, NY, USA: Munsell Color
Science Laboratory, July, 1998.

285

Authorized licensed use limited to: KU Leuven Libraries. Downloaded on May 01,2024 at 10:43:12 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.