Friday evening in LA

in approximated English below

La conférence finissant en milieu d'après-midi et n'ayant pas de logement à San Diego ce soir je me décide spontanément de rallier LA quelques heures plus tôt que prévu. Valise fermée, sac sur l'épaule, au revoir aux collègues de la couleur, je file au terminal Greyhound de San Diego.

2h30 de bus en soirée après que le soleil se soit couché, un arrêt à Long Beach et j’arrive dans mon hotel Standard booké à l'arrache avant mon airbnb. Mon voisin de greyhound est méxicain et s’en va à SF parti de Tijuana en début de journée, on parle politique américaine - c’est rapide - et européenne mais surtout football. Ce qui confirme une chose, Merkel est connue jusqu'au Mexique, par contre Hollande c'est pas encore ca.

Cette arrivée plus tôt à LA me permet de rencontrer une locale - nous l'appellerons Betsy - amie d’un ami à Paris. On se retrouve vers 10:00pm sur le rooftop bar de mon hotel pour à priori un drink de bienvenue, il y en aura plusieurs. Dans le ciel les hélicoptères patrouillent, les manifestants manifestent et la police veille - pas une impression de fin du monde mais un peu quand même.

On redescend, direction un autre rooftop bar. Queue à l’entrée, nous bougeons parce que trop bougie, quelques mètres plus loin un autre bouge, pas de queue, des lumières rouges, bonne musique, un jardin en arrière. La musique se mêle aux sirènes ou le contraire, avant d'arriver ici on a du attendre que la fin d’un cortège passe suivi de voitures remplies de robocops, ambiance - pas l'impression d'être dans un film de zombis mais un peu quand même.

Ma guide n’est pas complètement fatiguée et moi non plus, ca tombe bien, autre endroit deux blocks plus loin au bar du Regent theatre The Love Song. Bar à l'atmosphère cosy old school - cocktail délicieux, bar woman à l'accent australien, tête rasée, robe couleur peau et énorme tatouage dans le dos elle se fond dans le décor - et discussion toujours intéressante sur LA qui dévie sur Bukowski et autres.

Pretty cool - l'impression que chaque phrase est ponctuée d'un it’s so bougie! ou quelque soit le propos d'un as a fuck mais toujours dans une tonalité charmante - pretty cool disais-je.

Le über de ma nouvelle amie arrive, je file vers mon hotel et ce sans me perdre, un miracle.

A photo posted by jeremie Gerhardt (@mrbonsoir) on Nov 10, 2016 at 10:09am PST

a google-ified translated English version

The conference ended up middle of the afternoon and having no place to stay in San Diego tonight I decided spontaneously to hit the road to LA. Suitcase ready, goodbye to the colleagues, direction the Greyhound bus terminal of San Diego.

2h30 of bus ride after the sunset, a long stop in Long Beach and I reach my Standard hotel booked in emergency a few hours ago, I only have an airbnb from tomorrow. My bus neighbor is Mexican and traveling from Tijuana to San Francisco. We talk about American politic - it's quick - and European but mostly about soccer. This confirms one thing, Merkel is known until Mexico, for Hollande it's another story.

This earlier arrival in LA allows me to meet a local - we will call her Betsy - friend of a friend in Paris. We meet at 10:00pm on the rooftop bar of my hotel for in theory one welcome drink, there will be many. In the sky the helicopters patrol, the demonstrators protest and the police monitors - not an impression of end of the world but not far from it.

We go down, aiming for another rooftop bar. Queue at the entrance, we don't wait because it's too bougie, a few meters away we dive into another dive, no queue, red lights, good music, garden in the back and beer in our hand. The music is mixing with the sound of the police, before reaching this place we let a cortege of policemen dressed like robocops following demonstrators passing before crossing the road, spooky - not the impression to be part of a zombie movie but not too far neither.

My local guide isn't totally tired and me neither, good for us, next stop is two blocks further away in another place, the bar of Regent theatre called The Love Song. Atmosphere is cosy old school, the cocktail delicious, the Australian bar woman fits with the scenery, shaved head, white dress skin color and a huge tattoo on her back. Ongoing discussion with my partner in crime still interesting about LA, Bukowski and many more.

Pretty cool - I have the impression that each sentence is punctuated with a it's so bougie! or whatever the topic is by as a fuck but always in a lovely key - pretty cool did I say.

The uber of my new friend arrives, I left to my hotel without loosing my way, a miracle.

Vision de San Diego

in lost English below

CIC se termine sur un rythme connu, éprouvant mais toujours réjouissant, discussions et présentations intéressantes entre autres à propos de display, l’arrivée d’outils d’optimisation, l’extension des CMFs [mes quelques notes sur la conférence CIC 2016 ici] et bien sûr la fatigue due à la distortion journalière du temps grace aux inévitables et indispensables bières d'après les sessions officielles.

16 ans après avoir suivi les élections américaines de Montréal - donc presque localement - je renouvelle l'expérience, cette fois ci de la Californie et dans le dernier fuseau horaire des résultats où l'issue fait peu de doutes. Chaque soirée à partir du mardi soir était animée de manifs anti nouveau président dans centre ville  de San Diego - où se déroule ma conférence couleur cette année - avec l'impression depuis de se réveiller chaque matin dans la mauvaise time line de Retour vers le Futur.

and now in lost English

CIC is getting over soon under its usual rhythm,  demanding but always gratifying, discussions and presentations were interesting on various topics such as display, new optimisation tools, the extension of CMFs [you can read here my few notes about the conference CIC 2016] and of course your body getting more tired every day because of the time distortion... time distortion mainly due to the inevitable and vital evening beer sessions after the official sessions.

16 years after having followed the US election from Montréal - so almost as a local - I renew the experience this time from California. The local time zone makes the doubts about the final results. Each evening from Tuesday demonstrations were happening in downtown San Diego - where my conference is taking place - with the sensitive impression to wake up each following morning in the wrong time line of Back to the Future.

Berlin Amsterdam New-York San-Diego

maybe in English below

Voyage un peu long mais ca va, de la place pour mes jambes donc je ne peux pas trop me plaindre et de plus tous mes avions ont réussi leur atterrissage. J'ai gagné pas mal de points sur Foursquare avec tous ces aéroports ainsi que quelques taches de sauce tomate sur mon t-shirt blanc... A retenir pour les futurs voyages: mettre un t-shirt noir et éviter les plats en sauce.

L'arrivée à San Diego ressemble à celle que j'ai eu à San Antonio ou Albuquerque. L'aéroport est vide, il fait chaud, il fait nuit, je ne sais plus dans quel fuseau horaire j'évolue. Mais rapidement je trouve mon bus, 2$ et 12min de trajet et j'arrive à mon hotel. Là je fais la connaissance de mon voisin de chambre, Alexandre prof brésilien comme moi venu écouter et aider sur place la conférence CIC. Il temps de s'effondrer, la session "short course" dont je suis un peu responsable débute dans 7h.

in live translated English

Journey a bit long but still ok, I had room to squeeze my legs so I can't really complain, besides my numerous airplanes did succeed in each of their landing.  I won a few points in Foursquare with all these airports as well as a few tomato sauce stains on my white shirt... Notes for the future trips: wear a black shirt and avoid pasta with tomato sauce.

The arrival in San Diego reminds me those I had in San Antonio or Albuquerque. The airport is empty, it's dark, it's warm, I don't know in which time zone i'm evolving. But quickly I find my bus, 2$m and 12min later I'm in my hotel. I meet my room neighbor for the time of the conference, Alexander a Brazilian professor coming like me to help and listen this week at CIC. It's about time to collapse, the session "Short Course" I'm involved in is starting in 7h.

Personal insights on color science

Context
In a previous post I talked about the last event in my field I did attend. Now I want to talk about my perception of this domain which is called color science. I'm pretty sure it can be applied to other fields of research as well.

From the first time I joined this community, from article reader, article contributor to reviewer, committee member and session chair my understanding of what is color science has evolved. One important thing is to stay humble, especially with the new comers. I have been one them, it was impressive. Impressive because you meet the people, authors of research articles that are part of the foundation of you work. You can add a person, a voice to written words, it's actually pretty cool.

There aren't thousand concepts to understand/enter the world of color science. Like in every fields it's about observation and trying to explain what's happening. But here it's all about light - its spectral properties - how we perceive this signal - a single light source to an image in the visible spectrum - and how can we develop robust scientific/engineering "stuffs" around it. What I find interesting is to witness what is the new thing coming each year, how a technical improvement can open a door for further applications.

Color trends
Among the research sub-fields presented at CIC this year I want to come back on four of them.

There is the recurrent discussion about color metrics, from a purely mathematical/geometrical approach to a more perception-wise approach trying to add an average human appreciation of the difference between two signals. Having a good metric is always helpful to evaluate your algorithm/experiment. Over the years the metrics are evolving, context is important (from display calibration to color textile differences...).

There is the what I call "purely geometrical approach" discussion where having a signal as vector of n values - for n wavelength -  a group of sensors - basic configuration made of three basis like RGB basis - you want to know the value of this signal once projected on the known basis/sensors. From that you can jump into optimization, addressing various problems such as finding the scene illuminant/white point, study metamerism. It seems obvious but it's not.

There is printing and 3D printing - there I meant color 3D printing. Just think of how to design a color test-chart for such printing system. HDR display is also coming stronger than ever. What is interesting with these two examples is that they both require to know your workflow, they are the "end" of a process chain: you need to understand the acquisition process to do a good reproduction. Understanding the use of the technology is obviously required.

On the last paragraph one can add the understanding of gamut mapping and how you "move" into your color space as something very important. For printers you have multi-inks system changing the shape of the color space available. For high resolution TV and HDR screen the color gamut shape may not change a lot - almost - but the variability of screen size, intensity scale, technology available make it difficult - to be understood as something cool and challenging for me - to offer a comfortable experience to the user among the different platforms.

Now that I'm a bit more in control with the tools/concepts in my field and sub-fields I have the tendency to prefer the projects combining several concepts - like high quality printing and movie post-production - and I always appreciate to hear how the authors are presenting their projects, which story they are telling us.

CIC visiting Darmstadt

What is CIC you may ask yourself? It's stand for Color Imaging Conference, a conference about color and imaging. This year it took place in Darmstadt DE. The last 22 editions always took place in the US, last year it was in Boston MA, two years ago in Albuquerque NM, three years ago in Los Angeles CA, four years ago in San Antonio TX and that's it for my involvement. Next stop is San Diego CA in November 2016.

I'm a regular attendee, I joined this community already ten years ago alternating between CGIV, AIC, EI and CIC. Depending of the event you will meet a slightly different crowd or so to say different crowds will meet allowing to go deeper in the various fields represented. But for sure it's about imaging, color, perception, printing, archiving, image acquisition, color management, camera and display calibration, gamut mapping and more.

This year almost 200 persons were attending the event in Darmstadt. There is a kind of routine in such event and being part of the committee allows you to see the people interaction with a special look. It's very special to see the attendees - former colleagues, friends, known members of this community - arriving from everywhere almost - from North America, Europe, Asia, Australia... - and being all jet-lagged. Even if you are traveling in the same time zone you will end up jet-lagged. First of all the schedule is tide and you have to use the "free" time to talk with everybody. Sharing a meal or a beer is usually very appropriate. As a result you barely have time to rest, but the kind of adrenaline you get from meeting the crème de la crème of the color scientists keeps you awake.

CIC 22 in Boston

For its 22th edition the Color Imaging Conference or CIC for the connsoisseurs took place in Boston. Comparing to last year in Albuquerque (NM) the color LUT did change a bit: yellow and blue for the desert and the sky to red and about 50 shades of autumn for the buildings and trees.

If as the previous editions the crowd of attendees remains similar - la crème de la crème of the color scientists - you can detect a slight dominance according to the conference location or with whom is organized the event. This year the keynote sessions where for both color scientists (CIC) and medical imaging scientists (IADP), then sessions were ran in parallel.

The joint keynotes brought interesting discussions. They were highlighting another practices of imaging system - like microscope - in the medical world. That is not a surprise that the imaging system described can provide very different visual results, from one microscope to the other the data do not appear identical to human observers but the extraction of information should. In one word there is no reference images or colors when the practicians is looking at samples, but they know that each patient is different and can base their diagnostic on their experience. In comparison to the CARS event, the IADP was much less about computer assisted radiography and more about image analysis (at least for what I have seen).

The day before the real opening of the conference is the short course day. Professionals, experts in academia or industry are giving lectures on color science topics. After chairing this session last year in Albuquerque NM I could follow two courses in Boston: one on color display given by Gabriel Marcu from Apple and a second on Color Rendering Index and Lighting given by Wendy Davis from University of Sydney. It is always refreshing to take part into these courses, to re-learn about display technology, display calibration, lighting technology and equally important how our comprehension of color science has evolves over the years and how new technologies force to change our approaches.

One thing I remind in particular is the new range of LEDs available - for some years already - and the changes that go with them. It is possible to design the properties of your lights - its spectral power distribution SPD - at very narrower wavelength bands. What does it mean? It means that you can really shape the gamut of your display or light installation, this in term of triangle shape in the color space of your choice. But being able to define a larger, wider color gamut on a sketch is not or should not be the only goal. We also have to think of the internal color space distribution, after all the light source we are most of the time in contact - the sun - has a very different SPD. The good side of it is the door open for us color scientists to continue exploring these new spaces.

It was good to see how my field of studies during my PhD - multi-spectral color reproduction, multi-colorant printing - has evolved. How multi-ink printing systems that were semi-experimental some years ago are now the basis of further experimentation. Further more it always a pleasure to hear someone telling you "I have read your thesis" when they see your name and your face for the first time.

Boston 13 years later

Second time in Boston, about 13 years after my first and only time in 2001 when I was an exchange student in Montréal. For the first trip a car full of Frenchies and Belgies was going South, leaving Québec behind us for the a long weekend. As far as I remember it was a really good weekend, not legendary but still very ok.

But back to our actual trip. I'm arriving from Berlin via Amsterdam. Luckily the Delta Airlines plane is pretty empty - I have two seats for me alone - and equipped with fairly new personal screen, I can actually see something - ce qui n'est pas toujours du luxe. I can say I was efficient in term of watching videos.

Landing was smooth, so was the custom and retrieving my luggage. In the plane I met a fellow going to attend the same conference as me. The reason I'm travelling to Boston is to attend the Color Imaging Conference (CIC22 to be precised). For once we left the South states of New Mexico, Texas or California, no excursion to the desert this time.

But back to Boston as I'm diverging again. The city isn't too big and the public transport is actually existing. I jumped in the subway and reached shortly after landing my AirBnB apartment in South End, somehow the South. Neat. Especially neat if you have seen the average price for an hotel room this week.

Thanks to the conference organisation I'm able to attend the event another time. In a smaller city all attendees are usually staying in the same hotel. This time not. Meaning I will have to wait tomorrow to meet the color scientist fellows, except one coming from France with whom I'm sharing the flat. According to plan and his plane he should arrive soon.

Evening talk in ARTsLab UNM

First day of the scientific program of the 21th Color Imaging Conference and this year it's taking place in Albuquerque, NM. A very funny name to pronouce in french. But enought with the jokes and back to the serious business. Being involved in color science and immersive display I try to follow what people are doing in both fields all over the world. And going to conferences is always a good excuse to knock on the door of the local lab or research department. So this year I contacted some weeks in advance Jane Crayton which I did meet at the Imersa event in Denver three years ago.

After some e-mails exchanged it was planned for me to give a talk entilted "Color Science for Immersive Displays" at the ARTsLab. The ARTsLab (Arts, Research, Technology and Science Laborator and check the link below) is a nice research lab where people from various fields can meet and colaborate, and if you have read the lines above it may involved immersive display... One of their permanent installation is a digital dome of 6 to 7m (?) and a studio which can be used for various tasks.

I wish more people could have attended the talk, but quality is better than quantity. And I was served. The pre-meeting before the talk at a local restaurant was delicious and I could see that some people take their coffee seriously. Hoping to see again the already known contact and newly made here or there in the future.

Some links:
- ARTsLab
- Color Imaging Conference
- Imersa

Color Imaging Conference, first day and Short Course day

It is the third time that I'm able to join the Color Imaging Conference (CIC) after Los Angeles, CA last year and San Antonio, TX in 2010. This time I attend it without article, the one we submitted wasn't exactly finished and did not deserve to be accepted. It is always good to have your paper rejected from a good conference, it only pushes you to improve your work and you end up publishing later a better article. And enough of stating the obvious.

So this time I joined the conference as co-chair on the short course program, or short course session, I never know... Anyway this conference day offers - not for free - a panel of courses given by experts from academia or industry. As co-chair we had, based on last year program, to propose new courses and select submitted courses, they should reflect the latest development in a field and/or give an overview of a given topic (such as multi-spectral imaging or gamut mapping). Interesting and important to me, the courses are also showing connections between research and industry, basic and applied research.

I had the chance to attend three courses: "Normal and Defective Color Vision: from Theory to Simulation" given by Caterina Ripamonti from UCL Institute of Ophtalmology, "Color Grading and Color Management for Motion Pictures" given by Stefan Luka from Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Peter Postma from FilmLight and "What Color is 3D?" given by Matt Cowan from RealD.

The first course was very interesting, because before going to the point of simulating how people with defective color vision see color, state of the art was presented. But more important it shows how color and vision are treated depending of your field of study or depending of your application and which assumptions you are stating to build up your theories and explanations (e.g. which functions are used to approximate how a signal is captured by the eye). We are the border of physiology and computer color science.

The two other courses were related. And the instructors from the color management for motion picture joined the color and 3D lecture after giving their lecture, which ends up with an interesting discussion. A nice aspect of color science in the field of motion picture is the very applied nature of it: how do you capture light, how to process it, how to you compose, create with the various available tools and how do you reproduce and display your work.

And I end up having diner with "la crème de la crème" of color scientists based in UK, Australia, Spain and Germany. Fun fact, none of us four are working in our respective country (whatever it means). As usual, the minimum number of language talked per person was 2.4 . Take that narrow minded and obsessed with boundaries people.

Perdu dans le désert

Très belle lumière au réveil, tôt le réveil, décalage horaire tout ça. Peu de choses
se passent aujourd'hui au niveau de la conférence (Color Imaging Conference 21th pour les curieux) et j'en profite pour me joindre à la paire franco-allemande Steven-Christophe en provenance de Darmstadt qui est prête à aller faire un petit tour dans le désert. Breaking Bad quand tu nous tiens.

Aux USA les routes sont droites, ce n'est pas un mythe. Nous sortons de la ville assez rapidement, deux virages pour rentrer sur l'autoroute puis tout droit en direction du sud pendant un paquet de miles. Première étape une réserve d'oiseaux en provenance de l'Alaska pour certains. Il fait chaud, le ciel est bleu, les arbres sont jaunes et c'est le seul signe que la saison est bien l'automne.

Nous revenons vers Socorro pour déjeuner et c'est l'instant cuisine mexicaine. On réalise, enfin mes partenaires de voiture réalisent que nous ne sommes pas loin du very large array (ou VLA) radiotélescope. Le repas fini nous prenons donc la direction plein ouest pour une cinquantaine de miles, là encore tout droit.

On monte sur un plateau et on doit pas être loin de 2000m d'altitude. Et à part le village Magdalena, sa station service et le panneau indiquant réserve indienne à droite, il n'y a rien. Il y a bien quelques vaches mais c'est tout.

Puis des points blancs apparaissent, même forme que les antennes paraboliques sur certains balcons, sauf que ceux-la font au bas mot 20m de diamètre et qu'elles sont espacées d'au moins 500m et ce sur plusieurs km, le tout en forme d'étoile à trois branche. On gare la voiture au "visitor center". Le temps d'acheter un sticker ou deux, lire les quelques posters expliquant le bazar, traitement du signal, transformée de Fourier tout ca ou comment observer les étoiles en les écoutant.

Retour par le même chemin. Tout droit plein Est pour virage à 90 degrés plein Nord. Une petite centaine de miles et on est dans les embouteillages à Albuquerque. La prochaine fois on ira plein Ouest, dans l'autre direction se trouve Roswell pour les connoisseurs.