About KCMS Calibrator Tool

Purpose of Calibrator Tool

KCMS Calibrator Tool is an interactive program designed to allow users to calibrate their own monitors to later display color-corrected data. The Calibrator Tool program is executed by the kcms_calibrate(1) command. (For details on kcms_calibrate(1), see the man page description.)

KCMS Calibrator Tool obtains color measurements from the measurement gathering device handler. It uses the data it collects to update the monitor's profile. A profile describes a device, including its type, chromaticities, and generic color response values.

KCMS software uses profiles to achieve the device-independent display of color data. The values KCMS Calibrator Tool writes to profiles represent the color response of the specific monitor from which the measurements were taken. The result is data whose color values are adjusted for that monitor to provide accurate color that is more consistent across different device types and under different viewing conditions.

(For details on the C-function interface between Calibrator Tool, the KCMS color management library, and the profiles, see the KCMS Application Developer's Guide.)

When one of the updated profiles is later used to display an image on the monitor, updated color data are used in place of the monitor profile generic data. The new profile more accurately represents the color image viewing conditions, monitor settings, and the state of the monitor (such as brightness and contrast). As such, the image rendered is a significant improvement over the one created by the generic profile.

This color correction process is similar to gamma correction. It can be more accurate, however, because it represents color correction at a finer level of detail than a single gamma value.

Colorimeter Software

You provide the device handling software for your colorimeter to measure the color monitor response. Using software functions, Calibrator Tool loads your module dynamically as a shared library. This guide refers to the user-written colorimeter device handler sample software as the loadable module to distinguish it from the KCMS Calibrator Tool (main program) with which it interacts.

Platforms and Support

KCMS Calibrator Tool currently calibrates color monitors only and is supported on workstations running the Solaris environment. The tool requires a color frame buffer and a color monitor. The code for one of the two sample loadable modules provided describes an interface to a colorimeter.

The ability to add loadable modules to Calibrator Tool is part of the KCMS portion of the Solaris SDK.

Features

Calibrator Tool provides the following features:

• It supports different measurement methods (with and without a colorimeter)

• It allows the end user to select from among several specific monitor devices to calibrate

• It automatically configures a system to use X Window System Version 11 visuals

• It provides error and status handling information

• It is internationalized using standard SunSoft utilities

Note that, although Calibrator Tool and the sample loadable modules provided with the KCMS portion of the SDK implement their GUI using Motif library routines, this is not a requirement for your loadable module. It can use alternate GUIs.

Installation

The kcms_calibrate(1) command is installed in the /usr/openwin/bin directory and the manual page, in the /usr/openwin/man/man1 directory.