Abstract
This paper presents a novel method to detect objects in images using color. The system learns by example how characteristic each discrete color is of a class of objects using two sets of training images; one set is of images known to contain at least one target object, while the other set is of images known to be free of the target objects. Using the training images, a look-up table is constructed, in which each discrete color is assigned a value, which approximates the probability that pixels with this discrete color are part of a target object. This table is called the Color Profile. To detect the presence of target objects in a new image the color profile values are back projected onto the image and the image is thresholded. A suitable threshold is calculated automatically and the system is able to recognize if the target objects cannot be distinguished by the Color Profile method. Applying the color profiling approach to a difficult inspection task has shown it to be a robust, accurate and fast solution.