What is the CIE System?
The CIE has defined a system that classifies color according to the HVS (it started producing specifications in 1931). Using this system we can specify any color in terms of its CIE coordinates. The CIE system works by weighting the SPD of an object in terms of three color matching functions. These functions are the sensitivities of a standard observer to light of different wavelengths. The weighting is performed over the visual spectrum, from around 360nm to 830nm in 1nm intervals. However, the illuminant, lighting, and viewing geometry are carefully defined. This process produces three CIE tri-stimulus values, XYZ, which describe the color. There are many measures that can be derived from the tri-stimulus values, these include chromaticity coordinates and color spaces. There are two CIE based color spaces, CIELuv and CIELab. They are near linear (as close as any color space is expected to sensibly get), device independent (unless your in the habit of swapping your eye balls with alie
