Abstract: 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.

Abstract: The invention is an apparatus and method for tracking colors in image features by using color elements. A scan signal representing a scanned imaage with colored features is converted into color element signals representing instantaneous magnitude values of predetermined color elements. These values are compared against predetermined color element magnitude value combinations representing expected colors of features in the image. If the instantaneous magnitude values match a predetermined color element value combination, the corresponding color is correlated with a picture element of the scanned image. More elaborately, image features are recognized by comparing the matched combination with the expected image feature locations. When a set of instantaneous values matching one of the expected color element combinations is correlated with an expected location, a determination is made whether the color element combination is one expected for the particular feature location.