US firm develops glasses for colourblind

A US firm has developed glasses that have allowed people with colour-blindness to see red and green for the first time.

EnChroma, based in Berkeley, San Francisco, developed the colour-blindness corrective gear two years ago and have now launched an upgraded model that allows users to play sports and is child-friendly.

Usually, colourblind people are not allowed to work as policemen, firemen, pilots or electricians, because even though they can distinguish most of the colours, their brains mistake red and green, especially when they are faint hues.

Those with normal colour vision have three photo-pigments in their eyes that are responsible to capture the light, with the brain doing the math to transform them into the right colour, whether it is blue, purple, yellow or red.

“Colourblind people overlap the red and green pigments in the brain a lot, so they get muddied colours,” EnChroma’s vice president Donald McPherson told ‘Xinhua’ news agency.

To help the brain separate these hues, EnChroma developed a glass that divides red and green, cutting a little bit of light between the two colours.

With the corrective glass, McPherson said, “the normal wavelengths are restored because it captures the right pigments, making the brain understand which colours are there.”

EnChroma is also planning to launch indoor glasses for the colourblind.

“They look like regular glasses, with transparent crystals, so they can be worn at the office or during class, which will help millions of people go about their work or their daily tasks in a regular way,” McPherson said.