Testing linear models on spectral daylight measurements

We have analyzed the results of the reconstruction quality of 252 daylight spectral curves measured at Granada, Spain, using four bases obtained from measurements in different areas of the world. For these reconstructions we used two different methods (orthogonality of characteristic vectors and chromaticity coordinates) to study the influence of the wavelength range and spectral resolution. The reconstruction method from chromaticity coordinates presents difficulties for the spectral recovery of daylight spectral power distributions regardless of the basis used. The orthogonality method makes clear that the best bases were those proposed by the CIE, but more than two characteristic CIE vectors were needed for good. (C) 1998 Optical Society of America.