Can I simulate what dichromats see??
The qualitative description of color blind color confusions may be adequate for a rough design guidelines, but the ideal solution would be to create a system which automatically changes display colors so that a normal trichromat could see what a dichromat sees. This is possible, but most people would find it difficult or impractical. The obvious, but incorrect, solution is to look through colored filters that block part of the spectrum. Ideally, you could produce a protanopic view by looking through a filter which eliminated wavelengths that stimulate “red” cones” while allowing “green” cones to be normally stimulated. This wont work because the “red” and “green” cones overlap so greatly in their sensitivities to different wavelengths, that no filter can selectively block the wavelengths which activate of one cone class and not the other. The alternative is to create a simulation by mapping between CIE and RGB spaces. It is a fair amount of trouble and there still are several problems.
