HSV

HSV

Hue, Saturation, Value.

HSV is a way of defining a colour based on a colour wheel. Hue measures the angle around the colour wheel (red is at 0 degrees, green at 120 degrees, blue at 240 degrees). The saturation indicates the radius on the colour wheel so indicates the proportion between dark (center) to pure colour to white (outside). Value indicates the brightness.

Hue has a value between 0 to 360 (degrees), saturation and value range from 0 to 100%. It is important to appreciate that different coding schemes may use different representations, for example hex values from 0 to 0xFF to represent hue.

An alternative way of understanding HSV is from the perspective of mixing paints: Hue would represent the pigment, Saturation the amount of pigment and Value the amount of white.

HSV is also known by the alternative HSB (Hue, Saturation, Brightness).

For more information see:

• http://www.ficml.org/jemimap/style/color/wheel.html - HSV colour wheel, with mouse over effects showing current colour values.