Augmented reality (AR) utilizes see-through displays to mix virtual objects into real-world scenes. The optical blending of virtual and real stimuli is apparently interpreted visually with an understanding of transparency. AR users can attend to the AR foreground, discounting to some extent the bleed-through of the background elements. Alternatively, they can attend to real-world objects manipulated by AR overlays, partially discounting their influence.

Aiming to build a color appearance model for optical see-through AR systems, this project involves psychophysical experiments, optical measurements, and models of the human visual system and its responses. 

Recently Michael earned a prestigious NSF CAREER award to support this work for the period 2020 - 2025: Project Info. 

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have displaced most other lighting technologies in use today due to their energy efficiency and flexibility.

Multi-channel or multi-primary LED systems offer tunable spectral properties that may be optimized for different applications, such as to enhance object colors, to influence circadian rhythms, or to study observer metamerism. Michael has designed three LED lighting systems for this type of research.

Such LED systems are also capable of smooth temporal transitions, useful for atmosphere or scene-setting, circadian lighting, etc. Murdoch has pursued pioneering research on the understudied topic of perception of rate of change of color and the adaptation to temporally-dynamic colored lighting.

Advanced display systems include high dynamic range (HDR), wide color gamut (WCG), organic light-emitting diode (OLED), and head-mounted displays (HMD). 

Murdoch addressed perceptual optimization of display systems in his PhD dissertation at Eindhoven University of Technology (in connection with Philips Research). This work continues at RIT as display technologies continue to develop. 

Recent research projects have addressed visibility of near-black differences in OLEDs, visual search with foreground/background color combinations, observer metamerism between display technologies, and the inter-relationships between luminance range, chromaticity gamut, and observer metamerism.

Extended-reality technologies (like VR, AR, MR, XR...) share an immersiveness that removes the "frame" that many display- and computer-based media have traditionally necessitated. Thus, Frameless Labs: a group of faculty from many disciplines at RIT and University of Rochester who share an interest in immersive technologies. We share tools, discuss commonalities, inspire multi-disciplinary work, and create a community of interest.

The Frameless Symposium is an annual conference at RIT's MAGIC Center that includes technical talks and papers, demos of technology and games, art installations, and live performances using XR technologies. 

Michael was a founding member of Frameless Labs and has served on the Program Committee for the Symposium every year since 2016.

The IS&T hosts the annual Color and Imaging Conference (CIC), the premier international meeting of color science experts. Michael has served as General Chair for CIC 2017 in Lillehammer, Norway, as well as Program co-Chair, Short-Course co-Chair, and Journal-first Lead Associate Editor in other years.

Michael and his students have presented multiple papers and posters at CIC and Michael has taught short courses at the conference. 

The ISCC is a national color-focused community that brings together science, art, industry, and education through conferences and online programming. 

Murdoch has served on the ISCC Board of Directors and is helping plan future events and webinars. He served on the Program Committee of the ISCC/AIC Munsell Centennial Symposium in Boston in 2018 and is currently planning the 2023 Color Impact Conference to be held in Rochester, NY.