S-CMS: Towards the definition of a Spectral Color Management System

Representations obtained from traditional RGB imaging depend on the viewing conditions, as influenced by the illumination and the observer (which can be a human being or electronic device). This makes different representations generally inconsistent with one another, and forces users to implement specific mechanisms of color management to address cross-device and cross-media reproduction issues, as well as to compare representations from different contexts. Over the years, the answer to this kind of problems has ben represented by a number of solutions developed to ease cross-device color preservation and reproduction, including the ICC [1] and sRGB [2] standards. Such solutions have progressively been integrated into software Color Management Systems (CMS), which can currently guarantee a good degree of precision with traditional (RGB) images. With the advancing of multispectral imaging, it is now interesting to review which challenges are posed by its integration into CMSs, and how these challenges will likely be confronted in the years to come.