Interlaced Colors 

This article is in active development! All contents are subject to change!

An interlaced color refers to a symbiosis of color and texture. It describes a chaotically homogenous spatial allocation of two (or more) different colors.

Examples of interlaced colors:

The spatial arrangement is determined by a custom texture map, which is a black and white image that's used to spatially allocate the compound colors of interlaced colors. White areas determine the location of the first compound color, black areas determine the location of the second compound color.

Examples of texture maps:

Interlaced colors are colors that inhabit the Goldilocks zone of spatial adjacency.

When two colors are too far apart, they don't significantly influence each other.

Conversely, when two colors are too close and too homogenously spaced, they strongly influence each other to form a retinal color mix.

The Goldilocks zone of spatial adjacency describes a perfect spatial allocation of two (or more) colors that significantly influence each other without collapsing into their additive color mix. To avoid this "additive collapse", the compound colors need to be in a chaotically homogenous spatial allocation. The homogeneity ensures consistency, so that wherever you look there's roughly the same spatial distribution of colors. And the chaos ensures discriminability, so that colors don't collapse into their additive color mix.

All these conditions for creating perfectly interlaced colors result in there being the Goldilocks zone of spatial adjacency for interlaced colors. An intelligent spatial distribution of the compound colors of an interlaced color—according to a custom texture map—is important and directly determines the interlaced color's functionality. The two compound colors of an interlaced color have to be close enough that they're linked to each other, yet far enough apart that they don't additively mix. Furthermore, interlaced colors trade visual acuity for color discriminability. Very small visual details are lost through most texture maps.

In their study "Using Patterns to Encode Color Information for Dichromats" Sajadi B. et al. (2011) have already proposed a method for using patterns to encode color information. However, while Sajadi B. et al.'s (2011) method of overlaying each major hue category with a unique pattern may superficially resemble my interlaced colors method, both methods are fundamentally different. Sajadi B. et al.'s (2011) method increases color discriminability by mainly using different patterns for different hue categoires, but my interlaced colors method increases color discriminability by mainly combining two different color spectra in a chaotically homogenous spatial allocation through a custom texture map. With the interlaced colors method color is still the main factor of color discriminability, but with Sajadi B. et al.'s (2011) method the overlaid patterns are the main factor of color discriminability. To my knowledge, the coinage of the term and method "interlaced colors" has first been described here in this article (by Kilian-Roy Lachner) and functionally realized in Custom Color Vision V1.21.

The interlaced colors method can be used to intuitively infer color without creating entirely novel color experiences. This method increases color discriminability through a chaotically homogenous spatial allocation of the colors of two (or more) different custom hue spectra, which overwrites the normal RGB screen colors in real time. It's a method that allows for a considerable retention of small details—depending on the used texture map and compared to Sajadi B. et al.'s (2011) method—as well as a more intuitive creation and navigation of novel hue/color categories, since color remains the main factor of color discrimination instead of only overlayed patterns.

Contrary to dichoptic colors (i.e. "impossible" color combinations by disrupting the chromatic redundancy of binocular color vision), interlaced colors do not need any more special viewing conditions or equipment to be functionally integrated into your color vision apart from the software (i.e. Custom Color Vision V1.21) that generates them. Regarding dichoptic colors, for example, you need two normally functioning eyes and the ability to cross/parallel view or a VR headset, in addition to special software. Interlaced colors merely presume at least moderately good visual acuity (for preventing additive mixing of more intricate patterns of texture maps) and at a minimum a single functioning eye, in addition to the special software Custom Color Vision V1.21. Thus, interlaced colors are more accessible than dichoptic colors while being similarly functional; although dichoptic colors have a greater potential for maintaing visual details once your dichoptic color vision is trained well enough to be functional.

Other than the slight loss of visual acuity in interlaced colors, both interlaced colors and dichoptic colors resemble each other. Both methods use at leat two color spectra with different colors. While the dichoptic colors method binocularly overlays these two custom color spectra's colors, the interlaced colors method spatially interweaves them. Both of these extraordinary and technologically generated color visions can result in the same functional color vision modification.

The interlaced colors method also requires a certain minimum distance to the screen. If you're looking at an interlaced color from too far away, then the interlaced colors' compound colors will collapse into their (singular) additive color mix.

Interlaced colors can be used to correct color vision deficiences. Specifically, similar to dichoptic colors, interlaced colors with two compound colors can be used to correct dichromacies towards a functional form of trichromacy. In the following, the dichromacy protanopia is used as an example.

As a thought experiment to demonstrate the subjective functionality of interlaced colors: For all we know, another person’s subjective experience (quale/qualia) of red could be either the same as your red, your green, or a color experience completely alien to you—if you could somehow see it. Interlaced colors constitute such an alien color quality. Together with other sensory experiences, this makes the experience of color an incomparable quality. Color tries its best to objectively describe physical attributes, but in reality it necessarily fails at doing so because it’s an entirely subjective experience made up by your brain with limited information.

The subjectivity of qualia permeates every human sensory experience. Each individual's brain essentially is a black box that takes in a range of different stimuli gathered by their senses and converts these abstract signals into what they call their perceived, continuous reality. We can still objectively measure the chemical and electrical signals in their brain, but the moment their brain interprets these signals and hallucinates the illusion of color, we’re neither able to measure that specific subjective experience nor compare its subjective quality to that of another person. The only meaningful and unsurprisingly flawed way to communicate our subjective experience of color is by using other means of communication, like language or pointing at a physical object that evokes this color experience.

In essence, the subjective experience of a color is incomparable between individuals. We can only compare color discriminability, i.e. how well we can differentiate between different wavelengths of light and combinations thereof. Therefore, whether an individual can trichromatically distinguish colors through normal color trichromatic qualities or interlaced dichromatic color qualities is irrelevant, as long as their color discrimininability remains equivalent in both cases. In other words, one color quality is not inherently better than the other, as long as the same (or at least a similar) functionality is maintained.

Therefore, interlaced colors can be used to functionally correct dichromacies (protanopia, deuteranopia, tritanopia) as well as anomalous trichromacies towards normal trichromacy. This functionality is ensured until a certain threshold of detail is reached that's determined by the texture map and the viewed image. Crossing this treshold results in the loss of intricate visual details (i.e. decreased visual acuity) in favor of color discriminability.

In the previous section, we've looked at the usefulness of interlaced colors for color vision deficiencies (CVD); specifically (red-green) dichromacies. Dichromacies severly limit the amount of unique color combinations that can be used to generate interlaced colors. For every color vision dimensionality the maximum increase in unique color qualia through interlaced colors (with two compound colors) is about 1,5-times the amount of its normal amount of colors. After this 1,5-times multiplication threshold color qualities start to repeat. Regarding interlaced colors, a yellow/blue will look identical to a blue/yellow (legend: first-compound-color/second-compound-color), for example. This is a natural limit determined by how many unique combinations you can generate by combining a single set with itself.

For normal trichromacy this 1,5-times multiplication threshold means that we can use interlaced colors to generate a functional 4,5-dimensional color vision. However, unlike in dichromacies, normal trichromats are digitally limited by the already trichromatic RGB color space. With interlaced colors dichromats make use of the spectral information that's normally indistinguishable to them in the context of digital RGB colors. Normal trichromats would need a 4th, a 5th and preferably also a 6th digital color dimension to achieve the same dimensional increase in color, but most digital color information and screens unfortunately are only trichromatic.

For example, you can have a trichromacy with normal hue discriminability but altered color qualities as in Image 2.2/2b.

As another example, you can also have a trichromacy with considerably better hue discriminability and altered color qualities as in Image 2.2/3b.

Therefore, in a digital color context, interlaced colors can be used to functionally enhance hue discriminability of normal trichromacy. This functionality is ensured until a certain threshold of detail is reached that's determined by the texture map and the viewed image. Here, too, but less pronounced, crossing this treshold results in the loss of intricate visual details (i.e. decreased visual acuity) in favor of color discriminability.

Choosing the right texture map for your use case is very important. 

• If your texture map's pattern is too big and/or chaotic, small visual details will be lost. 

• If your texture map's pattern is too small/or ordered, the two compound colors will collapse into their additive color mix. 

The following texture maps have been tested to come close to the Goldilocks zone of spatial adjacency via the chaotically homogenous spatial allocation of the black and white pixels. The first compound color of an interlaced color repopulates the black pixels and the second the white pixels.

The functionality of a texture map ultimately depends on the use case.

Below you can find the Chaotic Pattern Generator application. It allows you to procedurally generate texture maps for the "interlaced colors support" of Custom Color Vision V1.21. While you can already generate many different texture maps with the Chaotic Pattern Generator application, there's almost an infinite amount of texture maps that you can design for yourself via different methods (e.g. painting by hand, AI generation, procedural generation, etc.). You can be creative and experiment for yourself to create the most functional (and/or beautiful) texture map for your use case.

Select two base images that you want to interlace, plus a valid bicolor (black-white) texture map. Recommend texture map "pattern_w1_h1_c10_r0_t-clustered" with the Chaotic Pattern Generator. Download the image (1080p) for correct resolution.

Image 4.1/1 shows how to generate interlaced colors with Custom Color Vision V1.21.