SBIR-STTR Award

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. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: 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.

Thesaurus Terms:
biomedical equipment development, color blindness, color vision, optics, sensory discrimination, vision aid colorimetry clinical research, human subject, spectrometry, vision test

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. Using the same color correction model developed in our Phase I grant we will construct cone sensitivity functions from the recently identified gene sequences responsible for the color cone pigment shifts. From the shifted cones we can use the mathematical model we developed during the phase I grant to derive anomalous color matching functions and then map any color stimuli as seen by the color deficient into a normal standard color space. Additionally we can use our model to develop color corrective filters tailored to the individual cone pigment shifts. We have identified 10 sets of filters that will color correct for 21 cone pigment shifts associated with anomalous deutans and protans. We will design and melt billets of the glass required for this study, and fabricate them into color-corrective eyewear. The color discrimination of 100 test subject will be studied at 2 test sites. Neutral density filters of the same luminance will act as controls. This set of 10 filters is unlike other corrective filters used for treating color deficiency. They are designed to correct the hue and saturation of colors for deuteranomolous and protanomolous individuals. We will identify 100 test subjects using the American Optical Company Hardy, Rand and Ritter (AO HRR) pseudoisochromatic plate test, and then from the Nagel Anomoloscope testing determine the probable wavelength shifts of the L and M cones responsible for the color deficiency. In this way we will select which of the 10 color corrective eyewear are most suited to each test subject. Each test subject will be tested using the desaturated D-15 cap tests, Farnsworth Munsell 100 Hue (FM-100) test, and Lanthony's desaturated cap test, the Famsworth Lantern test as well as the Dvorine Color Matching Wheel, with and without the color-corrective eyewear. We plan to partner with a marketing and sales based optical company to distibute our color corrective eyewear.

Thesaurus Terms:
color vision, technology /technique development, vision disorder vision aid clinical research, human middle age (35-64), human subject, vision test, young adult human (21-34)