Best colours for visibility at sea

[baeckmo]

Originally Posted by hoytedow

The best contrast is at the opposite side of the color wheel.

http://www.tigercolor.com/color-lab/...tm#Color_Wheel
http://www.tigercolor.com/color-lab/...eory-intro.htm

Yupp, that is what is meant with complementary color. And provided just that color is within the visible wavelength range at the prevailing light conditions! But the orange is practically outside that range in darkness, which makes it unsuitable in that condition.

[hoytedow]

No argument here.

[rxcomposite]

Color is nothing without a contrasting background. Here is the chart that shows orange is best. No such luck for color blind or partially color blind as the orange vanishes, yellow remained dominant. I will try to look for the picture.

[rxcomposite]

Here is the link for the color blind.http://bicycles.stackexchange.com/qu...llow-vs-orange

[hoytedow]

http://colorvisiontesting.com/online...#demonstration card

http://www.testingcolorvision.com/

[Steve W]

I havnt read the whole thread so maybe its already been discussed but most highway workers seem to wear the high visibility green color, i used to have a Line Seven foul weather jacket 40 years ago in that color and it sure was visible, then again i never got to see how well it stans out on the ocean as i was wearing it. There are some street signs that are so bright at night when your headlights catch them they look like powerfull electric lights. Something like that or that D.O.T approved 2" wide tape might be a good thing to put a few bands near the top of the mast might help searchers spot you in the troughs at night.
Steve.

[baeckmo]

Originally Posted by rxcomposite

Color is nothing without a contrasting background. Here is the chart that shows orange is best. No such luck for color blind or partially color blind as the orange vanishes, yellow remained dominant. I will try to look for the picture.

The point here is: in the dark we are all more or less red/green color blind, since those wavelengths are not available to produce an orange image. The visibility of an object is a combination of several factors:

A/ a color that we are adapted to see, i.e. in the actual high-sensitive range
B/ a color that contrasts to the prevailing surroundings
C/ a spectrum of light that includes the colors above, so those wavelengths can be reflected from objects to our eyes.

The condition under "C" may be causing some controversy in that we have not so far identified the conditions Leo had in mind when he opened the thread, but I have taken it as a "bad weather, low light intensity" condition.

With the combination of these factors in mind, the design of anything that has to "stick out" in bad visibility conditions boils down to the color schemes we see today in road signs, warning clothing et c. F.i. most pilot boat crews today wear the light green/yellow color, and it is not for their haute coiture values, but for survival.

[rxcomposite]

Baeckmo,

The article in the link (post 124) explains what is best in low light condition.

"That said, it doesn't matter too much. The important thing is to have significant contrast with the rest of the environment.

One side-issue to keep in mind is that the time when visibility is most degraded is NOT at night. The worst time for visibility is at dawn or dusk, when there is enough light to "see" everything, but not enough light for good visual contrast between things on/near the road. For this reason, your most important safety device is a nice bright rear light."

[GavinM]

Did not read the whole thread but here's an exercise done by some surf skiers in South Africa regarding searching for missing kayaks and kayakers by boat and helicopter... Maybe some of it applies to what you need?

http://www.surfski.info/getting-star...-exercise.html

[Schoonner]

Okay, I see now that the thread is leaning towards green, but I already did this: What do you guys think? Do you like it?


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[Earl Boebert]

Well, the fashion in cars at least may be changing. Pantone, the people who maintain color standards for printing and other industries, has named Tangerine Tango (Pantone 17-1463 for you graphics arts types) the 2012 Color of the Year. More at:

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/21/pantone_color_imprint/

Cheers,

Earl

[Leo Lazauskas]

Originally Posted by Earl Boebert

Well, the fashion in cars at least may be changing. Pantone, the people who maintain color standards for printing and other industries, has named Tangerine Tango (Pantone 17-1463 for you graphics arts types) the 2012 Color of the Year. More at:

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/21/pantone_color_imprint/

Cheers,

Earl

Good visilbility (combined with sound) is very important for these small vehicles.
Personally, I don't think that they will be hugely popular until there are
dedicated roads for them. They shouldn't have to share roads with trucks and
buses and other vehicles that can crush them flat.

[DCockey]

The popularity of different colors for clothing, furniture, vehicles, architecture and anything else for which color is not regulated varies with time and between cultures. Some who is interested in cultural history and pays attention to historical colors can date items based on their colors, particualarly items from the last 100 years or so the number of colors available inexpensively exploded. Some of the variation is almost predictably cyclic. For example in North America dark green for automobiles goes from not offered to perhaps 7% of the market and back to not offered every ten years or so.

It's not coincidence that the colors available for different items seem to move together. There are numerous associations, consultants and businesses which provide forecasts of future trends in colors. One of the first was the Color Association of the United States: http://www.colorassociation.com/ Pantone is a commercial company which provides a color matching system and reference colors as well as forecasts: http://www.pantone.com/pages/pantone/index.aspx Global Colour Research is an example of a color consultant http://www.globalcolor.co.uk/ BASF manufactures paint and many other items, and an example of one of their forecasts can be seen at http://www.asiapacific.basf.com/apex...a-Pacific-2011 Links to other forecasts can be found at http://www.squidoo.com/ColorTrends2012 It's interesting reading the sociological trends which are claimed to be linked to color in these forecasts.

[michael pierzga]

Originally Posted by Leo Lazauskas

Good visilbility (combined with sound) is very important for these small vehicles.
Personally, I don't think that they will be hugely popular until there are
dedicated roads for them. They shouldn't have to share roads with trucks and
buses and other vehicles that can crush them flat.

It would be a fantastic way to promote the use of small cars. A separate lane for vehicles powered by less than one litre ..... city parking for less than one litre vehicles would also be a winner. If I remember correctly this was to original buisness model for SMART Car.

[stanny]

Off the north Norfolk coast the wind farm support vessels are mainly aluminum with orange black and white paint work top side this seems to stand out quite well but goes with the color scheme of a rescue boat.