My wife recently observed my two-year-old son eating green strawberries and is now curious if he has some kind of red-green color blindness. Unfortunately, he is not yet able to give us the name of numbers, so the commonly used Ishihara test images won’t do. Well, I thought it´s a nice idea for this rainy Sunday afternoon to generate some of those images myself. Instead of numbers I used simple images of things I knew my son is able to name. If you like, find the source files here. The icons are taken from thenounproject.

My wife recently watched my 2 years old son eating green strawberries and was now curious if he has some kind of red-green color blindness. Unfortunately, he is not yet able to tell us the name of numbers, so the commonly used Ishihara test images won’t work in this case. Well, I thought it would be a nice idea for this rainy Sunday to generate some of those images myself. Instead of numbers I used simple images of things I knew my son is able to name. If you like, find the source files here. Icons taken from thenounproject.

Comments

Shawn Pucknell (Jul 04, 2011)

As someone who has red/green colorblindness I think this is amazing. Very cool idea. Now tell me what icons are on these as I can’t see any ;)

Dave (Jul 04, 2011)

Very cool! but you should point out that you need a calibrated display to get a significant result.

George Profenza (Jul 04, 2011)

Thank you for sharing the source!

In on of the courses at university I learned a bit about colour blindness and that was pretty interesting. A friend and colleague, Max Novakovic wrote something similar using Processing.js some time ago. You can check out his sketches here: http://disturbmedia.com/blog/post/merry-colour-blindness/

Gregor Aisch (Jul 07, 2011)

I showd the images to my son and it seems that, although he really likes them, the only thing he recognizes is “Punktiis” which means little points. Surprisingly, this is the same reaction as observed by @impure140. Maybe this kind of abstraction task is yet too difficult for two-yrs-olds. Next time I’ll show him blurred versions of the images..

Color Blindness Test Images — vis4.net/labs (Aug 01, 2011)

[…] Color Blindness Test Images I generated some Ishihara color blindness test images with Processing. Instead of numbers I used simple icons of things I knew my son would be able to name. Find the source files here. The icons are taken from thenounproject. Here’s why I did this. […]

Charles (Aug 01, 2011)

Hi,

You linked to my site above so WP Pingback let me know about you! I’m really glad to see someone doing this. Its very hard to find quality tests for young children, despite the risks involved (such as eating unripe fruit). For reference, i’m moderately red-green color blind and can’t tell any of the pictures you posted. Perhaps you should give an easier one so I dont feel so bad:)

Charles

Color Contrast Analyser 2.2 - fux | finest user experience (May 25, 2012)

[…] Unter vis4.net findet ihre weitere Farbenblindheit-Testbilder wie das Artikelbild. Viel Spass beim […]

G (May 16, 2012)

IS there away to do this with a message. We are trying to advertise to only colour blind people and would like to hide messages in these tests? any ideas?

Cassandra (Jun 21, 2012)

There is a substantial family history of “color blindness” in both my and my husband’s families and my husband is so thoroughly impaired that he sees mostly tans and browns. While color vision differences are not the end of the world, I am unsure how to approach teaching colors to my two year old when I don’t even know what he sees! So, now I know my son is indeed likely seeing colors differently than myself. Now this question: If I’m the only one in my family who sees color “normally,” doesn’t that make ME the color blind one? LOL!

Sarah (Aug 05, 2012)

Hello, I love what you did here with the Ishihara test. Very creative for a 2 year old. My husband to be and I are both eye doctors. I want to use the Ishihara numbers as our table numbers at our upcoming wedding. How did you create the actual plates? They look amazing. Thanks!

thomas (Sep 02, 2012)

Fantastic work! Much thanks for sharing the code, but my Processing skills are next to non-existing I’m afraid. Is there a way to generate the image inside of a rectangle instead of a circle?

Grimpix (Sep 14, 2012)

Hi, thanx for posting the surce, and I don’t want to bother you, but I would like to ask few lame questions.

I am totally new to Processing (first time heard about), but I have downloaded it and I tried to make my own pattern from my own image. Is there any value to delay the drawing for animation purposes, or the calculations simply takes time? Can I fasten somehow the drawing process? I have seen that the color style 2 is disabled, this is some colorblind palette too? Do you have any recomandation referring to the base image? How fine details can be processed by the script? Thank you very much, Grimpix

Utazások Fotográfiában: Ishihara sensei lába nyomán, de saruszíját korántsem megoldva… (Sep 19, 2012)

[…] Megköszönném, ha valaki használhatóbb módszer írna ilyen ábrák előállítására. Addig is ezt találtam. A bejegyzésből letölthető a Processing-kód, amely nemcsak alkalmas Ishihara-féle tesztek […]

Von Dell (Nov 10, 2012)

I am a preschool teacher. This tool for non-readers would be very helpful in assessing color blindness in non-readers. It would be great if you provided examples that include all color blindness possibilities. I think you could market these to vision therapists, pediatricians, teachers, etc. If you develop other models for screening young children, please let me Thanks

Susannah (Dec 02, 2012)

Thanks for this! I was also wondering if my 2 year old son had red/green colorblindness, and using these I was able to determine that he doesn’t.

Savage (Jan 16, 2013)

I’m Color Blind and… I see nothing in these pictures. It makes me sad :(

Justin (Jan 31, 2013)

I am looking for a way to add as much text as possible within the circle but am having a very hard time in doing so. As a matter of fact I am having a difficult time finding anyone who has the ability to get writing inside the circle. Would you be able to help?

Paul Bretherton (Feb 01, 2013)

Hello I am a neuroscientist and I study perception and attention. I would like to create a unique set of stimuli for studying perception and think this would be ideal.

What software did you use to create these? Is it readily available?

BW Paul Bretherton