Abstract: A method of finding targets in a color image applies ratio space rich colored filtering to identify a band of pixels that form a transition zone from one rich color to another. This pixel band is reduced to a rich color transition curve. A set of transition curves with simple geometric and color properties for the entire image, can be compared to a database of target properties to identify a target in an image.

Abstract: A method for identifying color in a target creates a ratio color space by determining the largest color component value of each pixel in an image and creating a ratio of all of the color component value with the largest component value for each pixel. The ratio for the color component of each pixel undergoes a threshold test to identify each color component as a rich shade or a fade shade. The ratio space color components are converted to a black and white image. Color information of adjacent pixels are clumped together to form blobs of the same color. The blobs are filtered by shape, color, location, or orientation and sorted to find targets that consist of a predefined pattern with the desired characteristics.