Patent ID: 8610948

Claim:
A method of determining a spectral gamut of a device during an off-line phase by constructing plural subdivisions of a set of samples spanning the spectral gamut, the method comprising: designating the set of samples by specifying plural device values in a device color space; generating a spectral reflectance array for each sample using the device value corresponding to the sample; generating a colorimetric value for each sample by transforming the spectral reflectance array corresponding to the sample under a reference illuminant, wherein the colorimetric value includes a lightness in a lightness dimension, a chroma in a chroma dimension and a hue in a hue dimension; and subdividing the set of samples into subdivisions based on the lightness, the chroma and the hue of the samples such that the number of samples in each subdivision is limited by a predetermined number, whereby in an on-line phase of spectral gamut mapping, subdivisions are identified that contain samples that are candidates for an acceptable match to an input color value which is given in the on-line phase, and an acceptably matching sample from the candidate samples in the identified subdivisions is determined relative to an objective function.