Amber (color)
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Amber is an orange-yellow color that got its name from the material known as amber. Due to this, amber can refer not to one but to a series of shades of orange (shown below in the shades of amber color comparison chart), since the natural material varies from nearly yellow when newer to orange or reddish-orange when older.
| Amber | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
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| Hex triplet | #FFBF00 | |
| B | (r, g, b) | (255, 191, 0) |
| HSV | (h, s, v) | (45°, 100%, 100%) |
| Source | BF2S Color Guide | |
| B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) |
||
Amber as shown in the color box at right is a pure chroma color on the color wheel halfway between orange and yellow. It is a color that is 75% yellow and 25% red.
The first recorded use of amber as a color name in English was in 1500. [1]
Contents |
[edit] Automotive lighting
| Amber (desaturated approximation) | ||
|---|---|---|
|
|
||
| Hex triplet | #FF7E00 | |
| B | (r, g, b) | (255, 126, 0) |
| HSV | (h, s, v) | (30°, 100%, 100%) |
| Source | CIECD | |
| B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) |
||
Amber is one of a handful of colors used in automotive signal lamps, and common standards are used to define these colors. In North America, the SAE, or Society of Automotive Engineers, has its J578 standard,[2] while European countries use the ECE regulations published by the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe.[3]
Both designate a range of orange and yellow hues in the CIE colorspace as "amber". The SAE formally uses the term "yellow amber" though the color is usually simply referred to as "amber". Amber should not be confused with selective yellow, a different color used in fog lamps, and sometimes as headlights in some European countries.
In the past, the ECE definition was more restrictive than the SAE definition, but more recently it has been aligned with the SAE standard.
[edit] Formal definitions
Previously, ECE amber was defined according to the 1968 Convention on Road Traffic[4], as follows:
| Limit towards green |  |
| Limit towards red |  |
| Limit towards white |  |
Recent revisions to the ECE regulations have aligned ECE Amber with SAE Yellow, defined as follows:
| Limit towards green |  |
| Limit towards red |  |
| Limit towards white |  |
The entirety of these definitions lie outside the gamut of the sRGB color space — such a pure color cannot be represented using RGB primaries. The color swatch to the right is a desaturated approximation, created by taking the centroid of the standard definition and moving it towards the D65 white point, until it meets the sRGB gamut triangle.
[edit] References
- ^ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930--McGraw Hill Page 189; Color Sample of Amber: Page 43 Plate 10 Color Sample J3
- ^ SAE J578: Color Specification
- ^ ECE R6
- ^ ECE Convention on Road Traffic, 1968, p. 60PDF (163 KiB)
[edit] External links
- UNECE Regulation No. 6: Uniform Provisions Concerning the Approval of Direction Indicators for Motor Vehicles and their Trailers (E/ECE/324-E/ECE/TRANS/505/Rev.1/Add.5/Rev.3/Amend.2)[1][2]
- UNECE Regulation No. 48: Uniform Provisions Concerning the Approval of Vehicles with Regard to the Installation of Lighting and Light-Signalling Devices (E/ECE/324-E/ECE/TRANS/505/Rev.1/Add.47/Rev.3/Amend.2)
- Dialight: Transportation Chromaticity Standards A manufacturer's page showing various color definitions on the CIE colorspace.
