Quality assurance of electronic display devices is important for maintaining reliable soft-copy image interpretations. This paper presents effects of test patterns on measurement of the luminance of liquid-crystal display (LCD) devices by use of a telescopic-type luminance meter. The luminance for different types of test patterns having different backgrounds and measurement areas was measured and compared with the results obtained with AAPM task group-18 (TG-18) LN test patterns. The luminance measured for the test patterns with a black background was lower than that measured for TG-18 LN test patterns due to the light emitted from the outside the focused area of the telescopic-type luminance meter. Also, the luminance obtained with smaller measurement areas indicated lower luminance. These tendencies were particularly obvious at low luminance. The luminance of the LCD device by use of a telescopic-type luminance meter should be measured with test patterns that have a black background and a smaller measurement area than that for the TG-18 LN test patterns.

It is known that the performance of liquid-crystal display (LCD) monitors, such as the luminance and contrast ratio, is dependent on the viewing angle. Our purpose in this study was to compare the angular performance and the effect on observer performance of different types of LCD monitors. The luminance performance and contrast ratio as a function of viewing angle (-60 degrees to 60 degrees) in each direction for two types of LCD monitors, namely, a general-purpose LCD monitor and one especially designed for medical use, were measured in this study. Furthermore, the observer performance at various viewing angles in the horizontal direction for a medical-grade LCD monitor was investigated by eight observers based on a contrast-detail diagram. The two types of LCD monitors showed notable variations in luminance and contrast ratio as a function of the viewing angle. Acceptable viewing angles in terms of the contrast ratio were much smaller in each direction than those for nominal viewing angles in the specifications provided by the manufacturers, and those for the medical-grade LCD monitor in the horizontal and vertical directions were broader than those of the general-purpose LCD monitor. There was no significant difference in observer performance between 0 degrees and 40 degrees. On the other hand, our results showed a statistically significant difference in observer performance between 0 degrees and 60 degrees.

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