APPARATUS FOR COUNTING COLOR TRANSITIONS AND AREAS IN REAL TIME CAMERA IMAGES

A color transition and area counting device for use in a machine vision system may include an input port for inputting a stream of pixels in a frame. The pixels in the frame with particular colors may be counted and stored by associated counters. The frame may be loaded simultaneously into four frame memories. Each frame memory may be read out in a different pattern, for example, horizontally, vertically, diagonally, and cross-diagonally. The number of valid color transitions detected in each of the four read out operations may be added to determine a transition count for the frame. The area count and transition count may be used to flag potentially defective objects examined by the system.