NBS/ISCC Color System

Original and Improved 267 Color Centroids

(Retsof online version)

Here is the complete set of color terms. Note that the force of tradition argued for using "pink" and "brown" instead of the more-logical "pale red" and "dark orange".

Language of colors with color dictionary: http://www.anthus.com/Colors/NBS.html

original by David A. Mundie Munsell converted to CIE XYZ and then converted to Mac QuickDraw RGB: http://www.anthus.com/Colors/Cent.html The Macintosh results appear to have colors red-shifted. "Web safe" colors do not do that.

John Foster reconverted supplied Munsell values via Munsell software downloaded from www.gretagmacbeth.com directly to RGB, and tried to resolve some duplicates Some of these don't even look right, because some of the bright colors are on the dark fringes with less chroma and are not centered and high up on the hue curves. Many of the original Munsell values (noted) are outside the RGB gamut, and have been adjusted to the closest brightest RGB value by changing chroma until 0 or 255 is reached in one out of bounds RGB component. Guesses were made in a few cases (noted) where the color was still illogical compared to the name.

The Munsell colour model was initially proposed by Albert H. Munsell in 1898 [Birren, 1969]. Munsell values themselves were described in 1905 (sphere), published as a color atlas in 1915 (slices of a bulging sphere), and redefined in 1929 as the Munsell Book of Color. It was later revised by the Optical Society of America in 1943 to more closely approximate Munsell’s desire for a functional and perceptually balanced colour system. It was further renotated in the 1970s. This set of colors may be more divergent than originally intended in 1955-1976; blue and purple even more so, since the date of the original Munsell centroid values is unknown.

I don't know whether the NBS-ISCC Munsell chart was made before or after the 1970s change, or whether it makes any difference. Since many of David Mundie's 267 centroids were out of the RGB gamut I had to wonder whether using "old" values with the "new" Munsell program would be correct. If the 267 centroids were for paint or ink, then it would be valid to have some extremely dark or bright colors.

13 Level one colors: Red, Orange, Yellow, Yellow-green, Green, Blue, Purple, White, Gray, Black, Pink, Brown, and Olive.

29 (31?) Level two colors: Add Reddish orange, Orange-yellow, yellowish pink, brownish pink, reddish brown, brownish orange, yellowish brown, olive-brown, greenish yellow, Olive-green, yellowish green, bluish green, greenish blue, purplish blue, violet, reddish purple, purplish pink, purplish red.
267 Universal Color Language Level 3 colors
Level 4 is the Munsell Book of Color
Level 5 is interpolated Munsell color chips
Universal Color Language Level 6 up to 5,000,000 CIE colors with no name.