In this work, the metric of a new multistage colour vision model, ATTD05, is assessed and a new colour difference formula is suggested. Firstly, the uniformity of the ATTD05 colour space was compared with that of CIECAM02 for some Munsell samples, because if the model yields a uniform perceptual space, we will be able to implement a colour difference formula as a Euclidian distance between two points. Secondly, we developed a new space based on the perceptual descriptors of the model: brightness, hue, colourfulness, and saturation. After that, we calculated the free parameters of the space that better fit the measured and experimental data of two datasets (small-magnitude and large-magnitude colour differences), by minimizing the performance factor (PF/3). Finally, we compare colour differences calculated for ATTD05 and for other models. The PF/3 and the STRESS parameters were used to decide which model predicts better perceptual differences and, therefore, which model was the more uniform. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 34, 359–366, 2009