Kansei Imaging: First Steps

Kansei engineering (also called affective engineering) studies and develops methods of translating and embedding perceptual and emotional qualities into the product design features. The paper adopts this principle and applies it to imaging: it proposes a new concept, "Kansei Imaging", which refers to development of algorithms aimed at modifying an existing image so as to reach a set of pre-defined emotional qualities. The paper sketches the elements required for building a Kansei imaging system, review the available related literature and, as a demonstration of the concept, it presents initial results of editing image colours in the colour emotion domain.