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A unified plan for Minza colors

From:Herman Miller <hmiller@...>
Date:Tuesday, July 5, 2005, 2:27
I've been revising the Minza color system. Originally, the colors were
borrowed from Lindiga, which uses a decimal system based on the hue of a
color in a paint program. I picked 10 equally spaced hues and used these
to define the basic colors. But I want to include the Zireen colors also
in Minza, and Zireen color vision is very different from human color
vision. I've been ignoring the differences, but I realized that what I
really need is a system based on the perceived wavelength of light. I
played around with a couple of options and settled on a logarithmic
scale, dividing the range from 369 nm to 738 nm into 8 equal steps.

738 nm   infrared
675 nm   (deep red)
621 nm   red
569 nm   yellow
522 nm   bluish green
479 nm   blue
439 nm   violet
403 nm   (deep violet)
369 nm   ultraviolet

That seemed reasonably good, but I didn't like the bluish green as a
basic color. So I subdivided the red-to-violet range to get a more
reasonable green.

621 nm   red (nuxči)
595 nm   orange (vezi)
569 nm   yellow (kirvi)
545 nm   green (zerđi)
522 nm   bluish green
500 nm   turquoise (šilgi)
479 nm   blue (lambi)
459 nm   indigo (điki)
439 nm   violet (fildi)

That turned out to be a nicer green. Now I have the four basic human
colors (red, green, yellow, and blue) plus orange, and the three basic
Zireen colors that are visible to humans (yellow, turquoise, and
indigo). If I arrange these in a circle, and add magenta opposite green,
then each of the four basic human colors has a complementary color. I
started putting together a chart:

http://www.io.com/~hmiller/png/minza-colors.png

That "bluish green" color is too close to green and turquoise to be of
much use, but it makes a good complementary color for "deep red", which
I identified with the Minza color "mryöni" (maroon). Besides, Zireen are
more sensitive to color differences in the green region, so it's useful
to have a word for that bluish-green color. I also added "ligwi"
(yellow-green) as a complement for "fildi" (violet).

The "turquoise" color at 500 nm isn't quite the right wavelength for the
Zireen color, but it's close enough (there's no point filling the gap
between "bluish-green" and "turquoise" with yet another similar-looking
color).