The Solution

An computer-based tool that automatically crafts colour schemes for computer applications within a formal colour space

Although this project adopts a holistic approach to colour selection, it is deliberately restricted to a manageable subset of the broad spectrum of colour manipulation - a tool for choosing colours for computer applications. This allows us to combine the problem and solution domains, and is a comparatively simple problem area; it is not necessary to complicate the issue with the peculiarities and restrictions of print technology for example.
    Formal colour spaces are the key to changing colour manipulation from empirical art to numerical science. We can generate precise geometrical relationships between points in a colour space, based on informal rules for harmonising the colours of an image's components. Then we can look for colour distributions that satisfy the geometrical relationships. It's just like choosing pairs of colours from opposite sides of the colour wheel, but a lot more precise and expressive.
    The beauty of this approach is that the relationships are independent of the position and orientation of the geometric shapes within the space, so a particular shape is a sort of prototype which the user can position arbitrarily within the colour space to generate any number of actual colour schemes. The software designer generates this prototype, and it can later be reoriented within the space by both the designer and the user. The colour schemes generated by reorienting the prototype will maintain the necessary relationships between image components, such as distinguishability.