10 bit per RGB in Clearwin possible ?

Currently color palette in Clearwin has 8 bits per color, or 24M colors. In 64 bit computing 24MB is considered like nothing. Even 32bit one can handle that, it is just 1% of its limit typically 2-3 and maximum 4 GB limit.

In my programs i color code the spectral lines or particles with their specific color so that with the mouse you can get the appropriate color of the screen pixel (Clearwin has special function for that for %gr or %pl. Great would be to have similar one for OpenGL %og too ).

But 24 M colors is not enough here in current complex cases involving very detailed spectra containing gazillion of lines. Scratching the head how to find the workaround with this problem for a long time and can not find one. The 10 bit color palette (1GB size) would probably ease my things. Currently all TVs can handle HDR imaging with 10 bit and cameras with 12 bit, 14 bit color depth per color. So inevitably 8 bit color depth will go away and even 1GB size become nothing if 108 Megapixel cell phone cameras are already on sale and Clearwin has to prepare to this in advance

In this context ClearWin+ simply reflects what is available in the Microsoft GDI and GDI+.

If and when Microsoft allow these colour depths then ClearWin+ can be adapted to pass this on to the user.

Piece of spectra is here. It shows vertical bars representing position and intensity of unresolved lines which combined give you what experiment sees in yellow. Each line is unique and belong to specific atom, its specific charge, specific configuration with specific quantum numbers.

Years ago it was easy to make this plot helpful because we were restricted by computer power and memory and were not able to include a lot of such lines. Today we fill 24 million lines in seconds and it is impossible to gain any knowledge where are those lines which actually contribute the most. All now instead of being rainbow is one color soup with one element out of 100 filling the screen with its color. before I was able to put mouse cursor on this line and know everything about it. Today all lines are identified wrong way because 24 million colors is not enough to mark all lines

All these millions of lines are not visible if use linear scale like here, they are there in LOG scale which allows to see orders of magnitude weaker lines.

Problem is with the slowness of method of assigning color to each line when there are more lines then colors. As a result you can not afford to do that before seeing plot each time as it may take few seconds (1000 times per day) and do that only ones at the beginning for all strongest lines

And why method slow is because color-associated integer number (one number which is obtained from three RGB numbers from 0 to 255) per each color if move from red to violet do not spread consecutively. As a result I assign color randomly (within 3 RGB limits for specific ion) and then check if this color was already taken.

For linear scale it is possible to speed up the method cutting all bellow 1/1000. Still it is annoying slow. And after 100 attempts to do good algorithm I suspect it is possibly malfunctioning

Good discussing this stuff again, the new ideas always come.

This plot has three different plots in it - line (red), bars, and line with the fill (yellow). All you see was done using draw_line@ and draw_characters@. There also exist Clearwin function to place color background underneath the %gr plot or on Clearwin window

Dan, I'm not sure I understand the issue fully. The image is hard for me to see if there are gradations either along the spectral lines, or if the changes in color are on adjacent lines. The yellow peak in the background is, of course, very obvious.

A while back, when I was working full time, I ran across the issues of sufficient colors AND the ability of the average human (and CRT and color laser printer) to distinguish adjacent colors that were only a few 'counts' apart in either the R, G, or B.

While it is true that 10 or 12 (or even 16-bits) are available, the human eye has a difficult time when viewing similar colors when the colors are adjacent. Think on when you and your SO are out picking paint colors. Some paint samples are really close in color, even when viewed in the same lighting. I, for example, have a very difficult time with dark blues and blacks (specifically socks!)

With having small features of a color and a similar color adjacent, it might be impossible to distinguish them. The human eye (and brain) tend to wash them together.

In my work case, I was trying to distinguish between detector responses of 0.05 dB as I mapped the face of a specialized detector that had unique physical, optical, and mechanical features. In order to get the 'zones' defined, I found that a big change of color in the step, and changing even more as the differences were greater, was visually useful. So, a totally green transition when from a light green to a brilliant green in steps of 5-10 counts from a starting value of 100 going to 255. That might step into RED for the next band. Etc.

Never used greys, whites or blacks. Hard to distinguish. But yellow, reds, greens, blues, orange, etc. could give the gradation I wanted to represent 20 dB of signal change across the face of the detector.

Bill, this need for larger color depth is not about human, though 10 bit is definitely needed in some cases, just look at color banding examples in Google search for images. Just 1 in 256 change is very noticeable in dark homogeneous change or blue sky. It is also needed in photography to keep larger dynamic range for HDR. In my case it is computer which distinguishes color when i point my mouse on the bar line above and tells me which line out of 24 million it is.

I will think about good fast method of assigning color for lines again. Clearly i do not need to see each of 24 million lines. The method i used was too universal, hence was too slow. Just to color 1000-10000-100000 lines would be OK probably

As to what humans distinguish i like this example which gives people good psychological and philosophical lesson, this is my own invention 😃 Take two piles of 30 and 31 candies or 30 and 31 coins. Only one out of 1000 people will for sure find the correct pile 10 out of 10 times. Hence ~3% of your income can be wasted, or saved, or donated on anything and will not be noticed, ok, the 1% for sure. Think about how much 1-3% is per year - pretty noticeable amount!

Dan, thanks for the explanation!

Blimey, the 747 has a Max that's in trouble?

Eddie's comment is about your writing 747 in place of 737, I think.

Mecej4, Of course.

John must use a touch screen and have fat fingers, methinks, as his pieces are usually full of typos. On the other hand, as he's in aerospace, he should know that 747 for 737 is inexcusable, hence why I pulled his leg, and he took it accordingly.

Perhaps the whole of the airline industry believes that 737s should have the passenger capacity of 747s, which is why there is so little legroom in the former - even in Business Class!

Eddie