Author Archives: @colblindor

New Release of Color Blindness Simulator

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The online Color BLIndness Simulator is a quite popular tool as many people are looking for a way to simulate some form of color vision deficiency. Usually if you hear about this handicap it’s very strange to think about, what the other person which suffers from color blindness really sees.

The first version the Color BLIndness Simulator was up and running now for many years and it was time to give it a fresh look and feel and some powerful new functionality. This was possible with the great work of MaPePeR who was inspired by my tool and took it to a new level. He made it much faster and added some really cool features to it:

  • Drag and drop your image or use the old-fashioned upload button.
  • Zoom in and out with incredible speed.
  • Use a lens to see the difference between the normal image and the chosen simulation.

All those enhancements were put together by him into a library called jsColorblindSimulator. I would like to thank MaPePeR very much for this great work!

color-blindness-simulatorAs with the first version it is still possible to simulate all forms of color vision deficiency:

There is also a very colorful initial image available which can be converted into the different types of color vision deficiencies. This way you don’t even need to use your own images.

The new version also includes the better algorithm from HCIRN by Matthew Wickline. If this new version would not be working correctly on your browser (as it uses more modern technologies) the old first version is still available as Coblis1.

I very much hope you enjoy the new Color BLIndness Simulator and happy simulating ;-).

Color Blind Check released!!

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Color Blind Check is available on Google Play Store: Android App – Color Blind Check.

Dear friends of Colblindor. Many you have been asking, when the official release of Color Blind Check will be available. It took a long time to develop and test it. But finally the release is ready for you!

With Color Blind Check you get a tool right in your hands which is easy to use and gives you instant feedback on your color vision abilities. Doesn’t matter what kind of color blindness you are suffering from, with this tool you’ll detect it and get detailed information about severity and type of your vision deficiency.

To promote this new kind of color blindness test you can access further informations on www.colorblindcheck.com. Or have a look at this introductional video to see it in action.


Color Blind Check is available on Google Play Store: Android App – Color Blind Check.

This new kind of check offers a broad set of features:

  • Testing color vision deficiency in two to four minutes.
  • Quick CBC for testing color blindness in 30 to 60 seconds.
  • Simple to handle, no special instructions needed.
  • Pause, restart whenever needed during testing.
  • Cancel/stop during running test.
  • Measuring type and severity of color vision deficiency.
  • Statistics of how many tests have been taken.
  • Direct link to most recent Color Blind Check result.
  • Direct link to highest Color Blind Check score.
  • Left-hand mode for easy testing.
  • Testing in portrait or landscape mode possible.

Let me know what you think about this new kind of color vision deficiency check through my contact page or by sending an email to contact@colorblindcheck.com. If you like it rate it on Google Play Store and give me some thumbs up!

Color Blind Check is available on Google Play Store: Android App – Color Blind Check.

“Life Without Color” – Film about Color Blindness

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This Janaury Robb Jacobson contacted me and told me about a new film he is producing: Life Without Color. He said: “The documentary will try to show color-blind people the technology and resources that we have available to help them distinguish colors, and as a result open their options for the careers they’ve wanted their entire lives.”

unnamedToday a Kickstarter campaign started to raise some money to produce a really nice film about people, who are affected by color vision deficiency. The stories he is telling are about those people who couldn’t follow their dreams to become pilots, fire fighters, police officers and more because of their imperfect color vision.

I also often get contacted by people who are looking for a solution to eliminate this handicap. But there is no help available—at least until today. Looking a little bit behind the scenes of this film project brings us to one of the sponsors Avalance Biotechnologies, which “is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on discovering and developing novel gene therapies to transform the lives of patients with sight-threatening ophthalmic diseases.”

Just this march this company announced an exclusive licence agreement with the University of Washington to develop gene therapy medicines to treat color blindness. And not only that. The company also gained the Drs. Jay and Maureen Neitz to join their Scientific Advisory Board. They will be technical advisors to the company on the science of vision.

In 2009 a team around Jay Neitz could cure monkeys suffering from red-green color blindness by injecting the missing red pigment genes into their eyes. And now, more than five years later, the dream of curing color blindness seems to become true—at least when we believe what those people are saying and writing about.

So for most of us who are colorblind this still means we have to wait, if this really ever becomes true or not. This upcoming film is for sure a nice insight into the lives of other colorblind people in our society. And if you like the whole project and would like to support Robb, visit his Kickstarter campaign invest some money into our future.



Life Without Color – Kickstarter Trailer from Robb Jacobson on Vimeo.

Hereafter the official press release for their Kickstarter campaign,  which started 10th of April, 2015:

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Filmmaker to Raise Funds Online to Help the Color-Blind

Robb Jacobson, filmmaker and story producer, turns to alternative funding sources for his first feature film, Life Without Color, a documentary about color-blindness and how it dictates lives.

Austin, TX  Apr 9, 2015 — Independent filmmaker Robb Jacobson is turning to the Internet to raise funds for his first feature film project, Life Without Color (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lifewithoutcolor/life-without-color-documentary), a documentary that follows the lives of color-blind people, showing their struggles to achieve their dreams, in an attempt to help them. With funding as the first major obstacle to getting any film off the ground, current economic conditions don’t make the job any easier. Filmmakers have to become more innovative in their fundraising tactics, and the independent filmmaking community has embraced sites like Kickstarter.com.

In line with Kickstarter.com guidelines, artists have a set number of days to raise all the funds, or the project receives nothing. Jacobson’s film has a 35-day fundraising window, from start to finish. If the allotted budget ($30,000 US) isn’t raised before May 14th, all pledges are cancelled and the film will not be funded.

Jacobson’s film Life Without Color, showcases those who are radically affected by color-blindness. A feature-length documentary, Life Without Color uses stories told from people who have lost their jobs or worse due to their condition, as well as re-enactments to bring the viewer into a world only some of us can see. Our world is dependent on uniformly perfect color vision, and when some can’t meet the standard, a great emotional rift is often created. There are some who may be able to help, but not all will have this hand extended to them, leaving them to carve out a spot in life for themselves.

When asked about what people can gain from a film about color-blindness, Jacobson noted, “Not everyone is affected by color-blindness, but EVERYONE can connect to facing great obstacles in life. Opportunities are not distributed fairly, and it can be a great inspiration to see how some people overcome great loss to find the one thing they value most. This film is about color-blindness and the human condition, showing that glory is saved for those who don’t give up.”

The film will be shot on location in the towns of each of the subjects from all over the continent. The re-enactments meant to portray the stories of some of the characters will primarily be filmed in central Texas. After the film is produced, it will be submitted to film festivals all over the country, the goal of which is the hometown favorite, SXSW (Austin). It is through this that Jacobson hopes to spread word of the difficulties and triumphs of a group he has ties to, as well as offer a solution to some who have struggled for a lifetime.

The Kickstarter campaign will also allow some of its backers to be in the film. The re-enactments will involve a great range of scenes involved, and some will even see significant screen time. There are even levels for backers to send in photos of their eyes to be used in the film. Jacobson wants his campaign to provide a way to get his backers involved, creating a film as diverse with its subjects as it is diverse with its stories.

Kickstarter campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lifewithoutcolor/life-without-color-documentary

About Robb Jacobson:

Robb Jacobson is a journalist from a small town in Indiana. His obsession with story has led him to work for NPR, ABC, and several production companies to help make shows like FOX’s American Idol, DISCOVERY’s Porter Ridge, and TLC’s My 600-lb Life. His passion for telling stories fuels his venture into the TV and Film industry, which he hopes will lead him to turn over some very interesting stones.

Contact:
Cindy Scott
Co-Producer
cindy.a.scott@gmail.com

Life Without Color – Documentary Film
313-587-6921

http://www.LifeWithoutColorFilm.com

Test Version of “Color Blind Check” Android App Available

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My Color Blind Check app will soon be released on the official android play market. I’m not sending you any test releases anymore but stay tuned and download the app, as soon as it is launched. I’ll definitely write about it on color-blindness.com, so stay tuned and register for the newsletter.

I few month back I wrote about my new color vision deficiency test “Color Blind Check” which I’m developing for Android smartphones and tablets. The first tests and impressions were very promising and I even posted a little video of it in my article Early Preview of Color Blind Check App.

Unfortunately I had to rewrite the most part of the test, as the graphics needed to be smoother and more enhancable. Therefore it took quite a while until I had my newest version ready, ready for you, the readers who are eager to learn more about it and ready to be tested.

What I would like to offer you:

  • If you have an Android Smartphone…
  • …which runs on Android 4.0 or higher…
  • …and feel ok with a very unpolished version…
  • …and would like to share your check results with me…
  • …then you are happily invited to contact me and ask for the APK.

Now, this is not for everyone, I know. My Color Blind Check app is not yet released, so you need to do some tweaks to get it up and running. Also if you use the app—which is not finished at all—you’ll be able to do the test. Anyway, the timing is not correctly shown, you need to be very patient if you have some form of color vision deficiency, there are many things not working yet, you won’t get any results (only through me) and so on.

But, you’ll be one of the first people to have a look at it and try it out, help me to further develop my app and maybe be part of the development of a major color vision deficiency color blindness test of the future.

TestPoint III Cyan - Check Result Comparison
TestPoint III Cyan – Check Result Comparison

This diagram shows you just some outcomes of the test itself. It’s built on four different test color areas. This shows the reaction time of the third color of a handful of test runs from different persons.

You can see that some people (two severely red-blind guys) have huge peaks. This exactly matches with the theory of color vision deficiency confusion lines. You can also see the sharply edged lines: the left one shows the peak for deutan deficiencies, the right for protan deficiencies. People with no color vision deficiency don’t show any particular peaks at all.

What I need now is a lot more test data. Data from non-colorblind people but also test data from different people which have different forms of color vision deficiencies. Only with this data available, I’ll be able to show if my test works at all or not.

So, if you would like to help me out, just contact me and ask for the APK v0.1 of my new “Color Blind Check”.

Step by step guide

  1. Get the APK from me by email.
  2. Change your settings to allow apps from unknown sources to be installed on your Android 4 smartphone: Settings -> Security -> Check: Unknown Sources
  3. Open the attachment on your smartphone. You’ll be asked, if you would like to install it.
  4. Find the app “Color Blind Check” and start it.
  5. Do the test in good light conditions (maybe do a first dry run).
  6. Share your result by email with me by simply pushing the share button, selecting email and filling out your name, age and if you know, your type of color vision deficiency.
  7. That’s it. Thanks.

If you send me you’re test data, I’ll put it into my spreadsheet and have a look, what you’re check results look like. If possible, I’ll get back to you and report you, what type of color vision deficiency you’re suffering from according to the test results you sent me, and maybe also how severe your cvd really is.

Thanks already in advance to all who are willing to try this new test getting up and running. – Daniel from Colblindor.

“Colourblind as all we are”

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Are you living in the Hong Kong area? Riddick Ning contacted me quite a while ago as they were putting together an art show to raise the awareness of color vision deficiency. He wrote:

“Nice to meet you. I am a colourblind artist based in Hong Kong. This Apr/May I will be curating an art exhibition with the title “Colourblind As All We Are”, using new media art and a new approach to arose the social awareness in Hong Kong. I will be inviting people with normal vision but different profession to join the exhibition to crossover and jam art works, including video artists, graphic designers etc.

Your 50 facts comes in handy when I talked to those don’t know much about colourblindness. I want to ask for your permission allowing me and my team to translate, edit a bit to fit the Hong Kong audiences, and transform the information into graphics and text to post online and used in the artwork.”

This all sounds pretty interesting and I’m looking forward to see some pictures or videos of the event.

24th of May til 22nd of June 2014

Colourblind as all we are - front
Colourblind as all we are – front

Colourblind as all we are-02
Colourblind as all we are – back

On the back side of the postcard he writes:

“Although there are approximately 300’000 people in Hong Kong suffering from CVD, this number does not seem to alarm anybody in Hong Kong, including the Hong Kong government. To raise the social awareness of CVD, Colourblind As All We Are challenges audiences that we are all colourblind in an artistic way.”

Thanks for this new idea and effort and hopefully they really can raise the awareness of color blindness.

Survey on Colour Deficiency Applications

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I was contacted by Maria, a visitor of color-blindness.com. She is doing a survey about color blindness, how this affects daily routine and if some color vision deficiency tools could help to improve the situation. Hereafter you can find her short call to join her survey.

Please spend just two minutes to help her out. Thanks – Daniel from Colblindor.

Hello,
I am Maria Soto, a student enrolled in the Degree in Optics and Optometry at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (www.upc.edu). For my final year project, I plan to undertake research on colour deficiency applications for smartphones or PCs in order to discover if these are useful or not.
An important part of my work will involve sending a questionnaire to a large group of colour deficiency subjects. The aim is to gain information regarding possible difficulties in daily activities that those people could have experienced in their lives.
If you want participate, in this link you will find the questionnaire:
Online Survey on Color Blindness.
Thank you for your participation.
Maria Soto

Early Preview of Color Blind Check App

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Right now I’m working on a Color Blindness Test App for Android devices. I know, it’s really in a very very early stage of development, but the results of the already working part of this App are looking very promising.


 

Sorry for the bad quality and maybe you won’t even see the color-shifted spots. But the video should only give you a feeling on what this color blindness check is all about and how it could look like in the future.

The results are looking promising, because if I take the test as is, I can’t see the colored parts in the test, when they move along the protan confusion line. Or in other words: Most of the time I can spot the parts, which are slowly changing color into a certain color-direction, as fast as my non-colorblind kids. But as soon as the color shift is along my area of color blindness, I suddenly can’t spot it anymore (“Dad, can’t you see that! :-) “).

The tests still needs a huge amount of work. But I hope one time I can release it as a real, working color blindness test which gives you some really good results concerning your type of color vision deficiency as well as the severity of it.

Colblindor at www.color-blindness.com in a new Design

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Finally I could release today my new design of Colblindor at color-blindness.com. It took me quite a long time — to long if you ask me. But finally I arrived where I wanted to.

cropped-color-blindness-colblindor-title.png
New Logo of Colblindor

I hope you like the new spirit. I made it easier to access to most important pages including the knowledge pages like Color Blind Essentials or the 50 Facts on Color Blindness, the color vision deficiency tests and the tools, which are available. It’s now also easier for me to handle the whole site, as it is powered by the newest technologies.

The history of Colblindor goes back to 2006 where I started the whole project:

  • Starting a blog about color blindness in 2006, at that time with no main URL
  • Moved to www.colblindor.com as the main URL for the next 6 years
  • Did some design changes during that time and produced a lot of content
  • Purchased color-blindness.com in 2013 and moved Colblindor to its new home
  • Complete redesign of the whole site and published it in January 2014

With the new design the site also had some major changes: I removed the forum, as it was huge work to keep all the spam out of it—sorry for that. On the other hand I have now a color blindness facebook fan site, which I would like to push further and get the interaction transferred to. So if you like this, friend me there :-)

I hope you like all the changes and the new setting. If you find anything which is not working properly, don’t hesitate to get in contact with me.

Online 38 Plates Edition of Ishihara Color Blindness Test Released

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I just released one of the oldest, definitely the most well known and definitely by far the most widely used color blindness test on earth: Ishihara 38 Plates CVD Test.

Unfortunately this test is not as good as one would think of:

Ishihara Plates Test Booklet

  • The original version detects just forms of red-green color blindness.
  • The test is to selective: Even people with normal color vision may fail.
  • It is based on a printed booklet. One has to be very careful with the handling.
  • Often even eye doctors don’t know how to handle it correctly…

The original test is distributed as printed booklet and it started its tour around the world from Japan early last century. Dr. Shinobu Ishihara published the 38 plates as first version of his test, which is still known under the name Ishihara plates test. After the first test he also released a shorter 24 and even a quick 14 plate version of it.

The online version of this test is not as good as it could be. The scanning of the printed plates altered the colors and therefore the result is not as meanigful as with some other tests which you can find in my arrangement of color blindness tests.

Online Ishihara CVD Test

When I take the test myself, I can see some numbers in some of the plates, but a lot of them are just a bunch of dots for me. If my children watch me doing so they always have to giggle, as they can see all the numbers and lines in all of the plates. Of course I know, I’m strongly red-blind and have quite some issues with colors. But in some plates I can’t see the slightes hint of a number! This makes me really think, as my kids easily spot all of them—even if my daughter just recently learned the numbers at all.

Try the Online Ishihara 38 Plates Edition Color Blindness Test yourself and see how you will perform—or not. With this online version of the test it is even possible to share your result with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, or by Email and let them also try the test themselves.

WSJ: New Outlook on Colorblindness

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Last week Melinda Beck from the Wall Street Journal called me to learn more about Color Blindness. We chatted for about half an hour and had a nice talk about all the different aspects of color vision deficiency.

The video below shows vision scientist Dr. Jay Neitz and WSJ’s Melinda Beck discuss on Lunch Break about Color Blindness. You can view the video below (intro is 15sec. of advertisement – sorry for that):

The online article New Outlook on Colorblindness is a nice summary of all the different aspects of color blindness: handicaps, soon to be seen genetic tests, possibility of genetic cure, apps, tools and even a short note on Color Name & Hue, a tool here from Colblindor which helps you to identify color names and its corresponding main color hue.