RECOGNITION OF IMAGE COLORS USING ARBITRARY SHAPES IN COLOR SPACE

In a color identification system in which a video signal is rendered into three mutually distinct color element signals, a set of defined colors is established. The disclosed invention defines each color in the set by three compound color components, each compound color component being defined by pairwise combination of color element magnitude ranges. As the color element signals change at the pixel rate of the video signal, the invention combines them into three compound signals, each compound signal resulting from combination of a respective two of the color signals. Each of these pairwise combinations is compared with compound color component sets to determine whether the current pixel embodies a color in the set of defined colors.