In article , Dale
wrote:

in painting and maybe many-colorant systems, I think a "mathematical"
software mixing program, in coordination with a spectral/color
measurement device might have a market

paints/painting can be expensive

if you had a software, perhaps with a xy/uv chromaticity diagram
locating all the paints, you could mix on the diagram, then calculate
how much of each paint you want to get the color you want, and mix them
too get an estimate before trial and error mixing

That won't provide enough information. You need to know the *specific*
pigments which were used, and that's nearly (or actually) impossible to
derive from the spectral values. And then, of course, you'd need to have
them on hand ...

Look up "metamerism".

Isaac