Colours on the television screen are created by a special form of additive light mixture known as a partitive mixture. The surface of the screen is covered by tiny points, each with a diameter of approximately 0.2 mm, containing phosphorescent materials (molecules). Normally, three types are selected to transmit red, green or blue light after excitement by beams of electrons; in other words, after they have absorbed energy. The screen colour-system introduced here is named RGB after these three colours. (Detailed text)
Colours on the television screen are created by a special form of additive light mixture known as a partitive mixture. The surface of the screen is covered by tiny points, each with a diameter of approximately 0.2 mm, containing phosphorescent materials (molecules). Normally, three types are selected to transmit red, green or blue light after excitement by beams of electrons; in other words, after they have absorbed energy. The screen colour-system introduced here is named RGB after these three colours.
The partitive light mixture is created because the human eye is incapable of perceiving the many hundreds of thousands of points — the triads of red, green and blue patches into which they are organised — individually, and can only register the mixing effect of all RGB-triads together, with brightness being regulated by the intensity of the electron stream which triggers the phosphorescence.
The colours on the screen are created by partitive mixing of red, green and blue. These are in turn able to produce only a limited number of all possible colours. The cube construction has been verified as the most suitable system for this particular range of colours, with each of its edges being divided into 16 equal parts numbered 1 to 15. These numbers are sufficient to specify the trichromatic composition of each colour. The eight corner-points of the cube are occupied by red (R), green (G) and blue (B), the subtractive primary colours magenta (M), yellow (Y) and Cyan (C), and the achromatic colours white (W) and black (B).
All colours in the RGB system can be concentrated into two subgroups, one centred on white and the other on black. The chromatic form extends from black (0, 0, 0) along the edges of the colours to reach the white tip (15, 15, 15) — the maximum intensity — after passing two corner points.
Date: No exact date; the system was developed in conjunction with television technology.
Basic colours: Red, green and blue
Form: Cube
Application: Colour-order for phosphorescent television screens
Related systems: HLS
Bibliography: «Computer Graphics CAD/CAM Image Processing», Editrice il Rostro, Milano 1981; David Travis, «Effective Color Displays», Computer and People Series, Academic Press, London 1991.