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NIST 'Vision Science Facility' Video Transcript

Visually Impaired Transcript for Vision Lab Video (back to news story)

VISUAL: Music plays as we fade in on a young woman woman sitting on a couch in a brightly lit room. A bowl of fruit rests on the table in front of her. The fruit looks spoiled. We hear her thoughts out loud.

Woman: I wish that this fruit didn't look so bad ...

VISUAL: As she views the fruit, its color suddenly changes to something very appealing. She grabs a strawberry and eats it.

Woman: Wow! I must be daydreaming. There's nothing wrong with this fruit.

VISUAL: Cut to a mirror on the wall. As the looks in the mirror, she is shocked by the dull look of her red hat.

Woman: Time to go. A quick touchup in the mirror and ... Oh my gosh! What happened to my hat?

VISUAL: Suddenly, the lighting changes and makes her hat appear more vivid.

Woman: Wait a second ... my hat looks fine now. Am I losing my mind?

VISUAL: Woman looks around room with a confused and spooked look on her face, trying to figure out what has been happening. Cut to her walking out the front door of a house.

Narrator (Voice Over Video): THE YOUNG WOMAN WE'VE BEEN WATCHING IS NOT GOING CRAZY. HER REACTIONS ARE HELPING PROVE A POINT: CHANGES IN LIGHTING AFFECT THE WAY WE PERCEIVE THE COLORS IN THE WORLD AROUND US.

VISUAL: Dissolve to a collage of everyday life scenes where lighting conditions affect perception of color.

BUT WHY AND HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN? AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, HOW CAN WE USE THE PROPERTIES OF LIGHT TO BETTER SERVE US?

VISUAL:  Dissolve to shot of NIST Spectrally Tunable Lighting Facility (STLF) as Wendy Davis and colleague arrange fruit on a plate and adjust the room's furniture. 

VISUAL: Cut to shot from below of a row of lights in STLF as Davis and colleague work on nearby equipment.

THANKS TO A UNIQUE LABORATORY AT THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY ... RESEARCHERS ARE HELPING ILLUMINATE THE ONCE-DIMLY UNDERSTOOD SCIENCE OF LIGHT .

VISUAL: Wendy Davis on camera. ID in lower third: Wendy Davis NIST Vision Scientist

Wendy Davis (on camera): "The spectrally tunable lighting facility we have here at our lab in NIST is the only one of its kind, really, in the world. We can use it to create virtually any light source spectrum we can dream up, and because of that, we can test out how a light source would behave as far as object, color, or any other properties..."

VISUAL: Cut to medium shot of a scientist adjusting objects in the STLF.

Davis (Voiceover): "...By doing this testing, we can really save manufacturers the effort of having to produce the light source that may or may not behave as they want."

VISUAL: Cut to shots of lab rooms as researchers enter with ladder. One adjusts LED lights in track in ceiling while the other holds the ladder.

Narrator (Voice Over Video): THE NIST VISION SCIENCE LAB CONSISTS OF TWO FURNISHED ROOMS ... EACH POSITIONED UNDER A BANK OF 18-HUNDRED HIGH-POWER LIGHT EMITTING DIODES ... OR L-E-Ds.

VISUAL:  Cut to medium shot of LED lights in ceiling as cover is put back in place.

VISUAL: Cut to wide shot of Davis operating the LED lighting panel controls. The ambient light changes color dramatically.

Narrator (Voice Over Video): COMPUTER CONTROL ALLOWS NIST RESEARCHERS TO FINE TUNE THE L-E-D ILLUMINATION ... MAKING IT POSSIBLE TO SIMULATE NEARLY ANY LIGHTING ENVIRONMENT WITHIN THE VISIBLE SPECTRUM.

Wendy Davis (on camera at first, but visual changes at "But this is only going to matter..."): "Here in our lab, we test how light sources are used for general illumination, and how they appear to people. This is particularly important for LEDs because they have potential for great energy savings over our current lighting technologies..."

VISUAL: Fade to image of LED-lit traffic signal, then to LEDs illuminating the interior of a grocery store.

VISUAL:  Cut to quick succession of shots of people trying to decide on which flowers and vegetables to buy based on how they look.

Davis (Voice Over Video): "...But this is really only going to matter if we actually use LEDs, if we use them in our homes and our offices and retail shops. And if we don't like them, if the color is bad, it doesn't matter how efficient they are..."

VISUAL: Fade to shot of automated LED assembler.

Davis (Voice Over Video): "...So here, we're collecting the data that goes into the standards and measurement protocols that allow LED manufacturers to make high-quality products."

VISUAL: Fade to shot of a row of light bulbs seen from below, then fade to a shot of an array of LEDs.

Narrator (Voice Over Video): FOR EXAMPLE ... CURRENT COLOR STANDARDS FOR INCANDESCENT AND FLUORESCENT LIGHT BULBS DON'T ALLOW SOME OF THE ADVANTAGES OF L-E-D ILLUMINATION TO SHINE THROUGH.

Wendy Davis (on camera): "The current way that we measure how well a light source allows us to see the color of objects illuminated by it is called the color-rendering index. It has a number of problems and is really strict in how it's defined..."

VISUAL: Closeup on bowl of fruit, which looks spoiled. Label reads "Simulated conventional lighting". Bar graphs appear reading "Conventional Color Scale" and "New NIST Scale", with the Conventional scale rising higher.

Davis (Voice Over Video): "...Because of that, it sometimes penalizes LEDs that can make object colors appear more vivid and really more beautiful..."

VISUAL: Closeup on same bowl of fruit, but the lighting changes and the fruit looks better. Label now reads "Vivid LED lighting". Bar graphs appear again, still reading "Conventional Color Scale" and "New NIST Scale", but this time the new NIST scale rises higher.

Davis (Voice Over Video): "...So here at NIST, we've developed the color quality scale, which better corresponds to human perceptual judgments of color in our environment, and we're testing it here in our lab."

VISUAL: Cut to medium shot of Wendy Davis as she watches a monitor with the scene from the lab room and adjusts lighting on control panel.

Narrator (Voice Over Video): THE NIST RESEARCHERS ALSO ARE USING THEIR SPECIAL FACILITY TO STUDY THE COMPOSITION OF WHITE LIGHT ... LOOKING FOR THE BLENDS THAT YIELD SUPERIOR COLOR QUALITY AND OPTIMAL ENERGY EFFICIENCY. BUT THE REAL VALUE OF THE NIST VISION SCIENCE LAB MAY BE MORE THAN JUST THE DATA IT PRODUCES.

VISUAL: Cut to medium shots of light bulb array and then to researchers in the lab room as lighting changes affect the way they appear.

VISUAL: Fade to closeup shots of equipment in the lab and furnishings in the STLF.

(Music up and under)

VISUAL: Wendy Davis on camera. "Ultimately the measure of light isn't really about numbers and instruments and math. It's about people..."

VISUAL: Dissolve to two shots of everyday life scenes where lighting conditions affect perception of color: a crowd walking through a mall, and a shot taken from a car as it drives over an illuminated city bridge.

Davis (Voice Over Video): " ...We use lighting so much throughout our lives, and it's really become such an important part of our society. So the measurements that we do here are really about making our lives better."

(Fade out as credits roll)

Created September 29, 2010, Updated January 3, 2017