National Association of Broadcasters Engineering Handbook, 11th Edition

Chapter5.1

Principles of Light, Vision, and Photometry

Jerry Whitaker

Advanced Television Systems Committee

Washington, D.C.

Based on text by W. Lyle Brewer, Robert A. Morris, Donald G. Fink¹ and Alan R. Robertson, Joseph F. Fisher, and Jerry C. Whitaker²

Introduction

Television images originate as light coming from a scene being viewed by a camera. The television system ends with the presentation of those images on a display, which generates light that is picked up by the eye and perceived by the human brain as a representation of the original scene. The key to the whole process is the science of light and how the human visual system detects light and processes the signals that it receives. This chapter introduces some of the scientific principles ...