To achieve the goal of photorealism in computer graphics, most of the efforts until now led on the simulation of physical phenomena. Meanwhile, the manipulation of color information was neglected. The purpose of this thesis is to present a certain number of problems in relation with color in computer graphics, and to give as much as posible some solutions to these problems. We first analyse the implementation of a rendering software taking the spectral nature of light into account. As the simplest solution is very expensive, more efficient algorithms known today are reviewed and compared. We then propose an adaptive algorithm for which spectral data are more or less precisely represented according to a dynamic estimation of colorimetric error. We then present the problem of visualizing the data computed by a spectral rendering software. For this, color fidelity must be assessed in accordance with two human observers (one of them supposed to be facing the scene, the other one being placed in front of the visualization device). Therefore, an inversible model of color vision and a model of color monitor are required. We survey known solutions. And we propose some future ways of research. Finally, the definition of a perceptual distance between color images is discussed. After a short review of known solutions, we suggest an algorithm specific to the field of computer graphics, which is based on one hand on the notion of attention focus, and on the other hand, on the use of a recently defined uniform color space.
