Colour is added by using three separate arrays, each fitted with a filter for one of the primaries red, green and blue that, in combination, produce a full-colour image.

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The team of astronomers is using data from the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea programme (VVV), one of six public surveys carried out with VISTA. The data have been used to create a monumental 108 200 by 81 500 pixel colour image containing nearly nine billion pixels.

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Add appropriate filters, and the whole thing produces a full-colour moving image.

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By using the latest in rear-projection technology, a high resolution, colour 3D-like holographic image is projected onto a flat two-dimensional sheet of acrylic in the shape of a woman.

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However, instead of each pixel representing a colour, as in the image on a screen, these readings show all the different chemical compounds present in each of the thousands of tiny patches that together make up the sample.

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The contrast between the exterior and interior colour schemes gives the car an elegant yet simultaneously sporting image.

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The result was a 3D computer image that revealed the important pathways of my brain in vivid colour.

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