Characterization of Luminance and Color Properties of 6-MP Wide-Screen Displays

Luminance and color performance are routinely evaluated as part of acceptance testing of displays used in diagnostic radiology. Previous work has indicated that as some diagnostic liquid crystal displays (LCDs) increase in backlight hours (BLH), the luminance measured with an external luminance meter exceeds the luminance reported by the manufacturer's built-in meter. The purposes of this work were as follows: first, to characterize several luminance and color performance characteristics for 23 Barco Coronis Fusion 6-MP MDCC 6230 color displays and, second, to provide initial data for a longitudinal study evaluating changes in luminance and color performance as BLH increase. Grayscale display conformance and maximum luminance were evaluated using a calibrated luminance meter and AAPM Task Group 18 test patterns, and agreement between target and measured luminance was calculated. Luminance uniformity was evaluated by calculating maximum luminance deviation. Color point and color uniformity were evaluated using a spectrophotometer, and the radial color distances between the corners and center of the display were calculated. Above 3 cd/m(2), there was good agreement between the target and measured luminance. At the maximum luminance, the mean difference was less than 1 %. The mean maximum luminance deviation for these displays was 10.40 +/- 2.38 %. Color point was observed to be very consistent between displays with mean values of u' and v' of 0.187 +/- 0.002 and 0.474 +/- 0.004, respectively. Among all displays, maximum radial color distance had a mean value of 0.003 +/- 0.001. These data provide a baseline for the acceptance of future displays as well as for longitudinal studies of luminance and color performance.