Spectrally tunable LED illuminator for vision research

Solid state lighting (SSL) [1] is expected to become a popular light source for colour vision experiments. One of the advantages of the light emitting diodes (LEDs) is the possibility to shape the target light spectrum according to the experimenters' needs. In this paper we present the LED based tunable illuminator designed specifically for colour vision research. The equipment we use consists of six Gamma Scientific RS-5B lamps, each containing 9 different LEDs and the 1 m integrating sphere. We describe the specification of the system and the preliminary work that we carried out in order to set the system up. Finally, we describe the spectral and colorimetric matching algorithms we developed to produce target light spectra.