Proceedings of International Conference on Circuits, Communication, Control and Computing (I4C 2014)

An Image Processing Technique for Color Detection

and Distinguish Patterns with Similar Color: An aid
for Color Blind People
Bhagya R Navada1, Santhosh K V2, Prajwal S, Harikishan B Shetty
Dept. of Instrumentation and Control Engineering
Manipal Institute of Technology
Manipal, India
1
kgbagya@gmail.com, 2kv.santhu@gmail.com

Abstract— In this work an attempt is made for designing a
prototype in aid for color blind people in detecting color and
edges of a given image which are of similar colors. Color blind
people are restricted and even excluded from some professional
jobs because of their deficiency to distinguish between colors.
Motivation behind this work is to try and reduce such deficiency
using technology. Image processing technique is used in proposed
work to develop a setup for identifying the colors in an image and
indicating the edges in case of different images with similar
colors. Image processing involve two parts, first is color detection
and the second is edge detection which is carried out on a
LabVIEW platform. Images are obtained using a wireless
camera in the field of view of a color blind person who is unable
to identify or judge the colors. It is then processed using
LabVIEW, color and edge of the image is displayed on LabVIEW
front panel.
Index Terms—Image processing, color blindness, LabVIEW.
Edge detection
I. INTRODUCTION
Out of the varied spectrum of vibrations, only a tiny part of
it is registered by the optic nerves. The perception of color is a
sensory experience. The color of an object is seen by the eye
when white light is shone upon the object's surface. Color
blindness is the inability to differentiate among certain colors.
Approximately 8% of men and 1% of women have a form of
color vision deficiency, which can be genetic or acquired
through illness, accident or poisoning. It is often a life-long
condition. Color plays an important role in all kinds of
industries. Along with color, an object can be characterized by
its size and shape. Edges are significant local changes of
intensity in an image. Edges typically occur on the boundary
between two different regions in an image. By determining its
edges, an object’s shape and size can be identified. There are
many applications of edge detection like surveillance, text
detection and shape detection etc.
Many researchers have reported work on image processing
techniques like, in [2], a method is reported for contrast
improvement of typhoon cloud images by using a normalized
arc tangent transformation and differential evolution algorithm.
An image segmentation technique is discussed in [3] to check
the ripe tomatoes using K-means clustering algorithm. Human
ear detection by edge detection and template matching
approach is reported in [4] for biometric application. In [5],
measurement of distance between two objects on an oblique
plane is reported using image based frame work. An
application of gradient descent method for image segmentation
of optic nerves of a bird’s eye is discussed in [6]. Here Signed
Pressure Force function is used for initialization of local
contour. An algorithm is used in [7] for edge detection of a
color image by using threshold technique. In [8], a method is
proposed for recursive detection of edges in color image based
on Green’s function approach in the color vector space field. A
technique is reported in [9] for color detection using
hierarchical neural networks in RGB space. A method for color
image edge detection using fast vectorial total variation
minimization model is reported in [10]. In [11], a color
recognition system is developed by finger interaction method
for object color detection. A traffic light recognition system is
developed in [12] using image processing techniques for color
blind vehicle driver.
From the study of reported work it is clear that, very less
work is done in the area of designing aid for color blind people.
Our aim is to develop an aid for color blind people for
recognizing color and the edges of images. The proposed setup
involves wireless camera through which the image will be
acquired, TV tuner card for interfacing the camera with
computer. The acquired image will be processed using the
LabVIEW IMAQ vision and vision assistant. The acquired
image and the processed image with colors will be displayed
on the front panel of VI.
LabVIEW gives opportunity to develop code which could
differentiate between colors.
IMAQ Vision for LabVIEW is a library of LabVIEW VIs
that can be used to develop machine vision and scientific
imaging applications.
Of all the different image formats that the Vision Toolkit
supports by default, JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
are probably the most common. The JPEG format is optimized
for photographs and similar continuous tone images that
contain a large number of colors, and can achieve astonishing
compression ratios, even while maintaining a high image
quality. The JPEG compression technique analyzes images,

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Proceedings of International Conference on Circuits, Communication, Control and Computing (I4C 2014)
removes data that is difficult for the human eye to distinguish,
and stores the resulting data as a 24-bit color image [1].
Paper is organized as follows: After introduction in section
I, section II describes the experimental model. Problem
description is given in section III, Methodology in section IV
result analysis is discussed in section V and in section VI
conclusion and future work is discussed.
II. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
Fig. 1 shows the experimental setup used for proposed
work. It consists of wireless camera, TV tuner card, computer
with LabVIEW software.
A. Wireless A/V Camera:
Wireless cameras transmit a video and audio signal to a
wireless receiver through a radio band. Wireless cameras are
proving very popular among modern security consumers due to
their low installation costs and flexible mounting options;
wireless cameras can be mounted/installed in locations
previously unavailable to standard wired cameras.
Fig. 1 Experimental setup
B. Digitizer (TV Tuner card)
A TV tuner is a kind of television tuner that allows
television signals to be received by a computer. Most TV
tuners also function as video capture cards, allowing them to
record television programs onto a hard disk much like the
digital video recorder (DVR) does.
The interfaces for TV tuner cards are most commonly
either PCI bus expansion card or the newer PCI Express bus
for many modern cards, but PCMCIA, Express Card, or USB
devices also exist. In addition, some video cards double as TV
tuners, notably the ATI All-In-Wonder series. The card
contains a tuner and an analog-to-digital converter along with
demodulation and interface logic.
MSRIT, BANGALORE, India, 21-22 NOVEMBER 2014
III. PROBLEM DESCRIPTION
Aim of this work is to design an aid for people suffering
from color blindness. In this work image is captured from a
wireless camera. Output of the camera is digitized by TV tuner
card which is connected to the computer through USB.
Acquired image is processed using LabVIEW IMAQ vision
tools. Processing involves two parts.
• Color detection
• Edge detection.
IV. METHODOLOGY
Block diagram of the proposed work is shown in Fig. 2
Wireless camera with transmitter
Receiver
Digitizer (TV tuner card)
Computer with LabVIEW
Fig. 2 Flow diagram
Using wireless camera, live image is acquired. The input
image is digitized using TV tuner card & digitized image is
processed using LabVIEW to find color and edges of image.
The programs were developed using the 2011 version of
LabVIEW. Given below are some of the tools that were
helpful in developing the program:
• IMAQ Create: Creates a temporary memory location
for an image.
• IMAQdx Open Camera VI: Opens a camera, queries
the camera for its capabilities, loads a camera
configuration file, and creates a unique reference to the
camera.
• IMAQdx Snap VI: Configures starts, acquires, and
unconfigures a snap acquisition.
• IMAQdx Grab VI: Acquires the most current frame
into Image Out. Call this VI only after calling
• IMAQdx Configure Grab VI: If image type does not
match video format of camera, this VI changes image
type to a suitable format.
• IMAQdx Close Camera VI: Stops an acquisition in
progress, releases resources associated with an
acquisition, and closes the specified Camera Session.
• Index Array: Returns element or sub array of n-
dimension array at index.
• IMAQ Extract Single Color Plane VI: Extracts a single
plane from a color image.
• IMAQ Edge Detection VI: Extracts contours (detects
edges) in gray-level values. Any image connected to
the input Image Dist. must be the same image type
connected to Image Src. The image type connected to
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Proceedings of International Conference on Circuits, Communication, Control and Computing (I4C 2014)

the input Image Mask must be an 8-bit image. The • Enhancement: apply a filter to enhance the quality of
connected source image must have been
b created with a the edges in the image (sharpening).
(
border capable of supporting the size
s of processing • Detection: determine which edge pixels should be
matrix. discarded as noise and which
w should be retained.
• IMAQ Color Match VI: Finds the maatch between color • Localization: determinee the exact location of an edge.
content of multiple regions in an image and those Edge thinning and linkking are usually required in this
defined by the input color Spectrum. Color Spectrum is step.
output from the IMAQ Color Learn VI.V
• Region of Interest - A group of VIs that
t manage ROIs. V. RESULTS AND
A ANALYSIS
Use these Vis to programmatically define ROIs and Our aim is to find colorr and edge of a given image
convert ROIs to and from image massks [13]. according to the region of innterest. By running this VI, a
picture input is read from cameera. Select the region of interest
Edge detection is a fundamental tool ussed in most image in picture whose color is to be found.
f The VI displays the color
processing applications to obtain informatioon from the video of selected points in the front panel
p as shown in fig. 3. IMAQ
frames in which feature extraction and object segmentation is color match is used for detectinng the color after training it to n
done In the ideal case, result of applying an edge
e detector to an colors.
image may lead to a set of connected curvees that indicate the
boundaries of objects, boundaries of surfacee markings as well
as curves that correspond to discontinuuities in surface
orientation. Thus, applying an edge detectioon algorithm to an
image may significantly reduce the amouunt of data to be
processed and may therefore filter out informmation that may be
regarded as less relevant, while preserviing the important
structural properties of an image. If edge detection step is
successful, subsequent task of interpretingg the information
contents in original image may thereforee be substantially
simplified. However, it is not always possibble to obtain such
ideal edges from real life images of modderate complexity.
There are an extremely large number of o edge detection
operators available, each designed to be seensitive to certain
types of edges. Variables involved in seleection of an edge
detection operator include:
Extracts contours (detects edges) in grayy-level values. The
image type connected to input Image Maskk must be an 8-bit
image. The connected source image must have h been created Fig. 3 Color detecction of a given image
with a border capable of supporting the sizee of the processing From an input image, 3 coolors can be identified from the
matrix. database of 7 colors present coomprising of violet, indigo, blue,
Noise environment: Edge detection is difficult in noisy green, yellow, orange and red.
images, since both the noise and the eddges contain high Acquired image is which is shown in fig. 4 is processed and
frequency content. Attempts to reduce thhe noise result in the edges of filtered image is deetected which is shown in fig. 5
blurred and distorted edges. Morphology VI does perform
basic morphological operations, such as dilation and erosion,
on grayscale and binary images. Other VI im mprove the quality
of binary images by filling holes in paarticles, removing
particles that touch the border of an imagee, removing noisy
particles, and removing unwanted particles based
b on different
characteristics of the particle.
Edge structure: Not all edges involve a step change in
intensity. Effects such as refraction or poor focus
f can result in
objects with boundaries defined by a grradual change in
intensity. The operator needs to be chosen too be responsive to
such a gradual change in those cases. Sobel algorithm
techniques actually characterize the nature of the transition for
each edge in order to distinguish.
Steps of edge detection
• Smoothing: suppress as much nooise as possible,
without destroying the true edges Fig. 4 Origginal Image

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Proceedings of International Conference on Circuits, Communication, Control and Computing (I4C 2014)
Fig. 5 Edge detection of a given image
The system was subjected to test with images having
different color combinations. 64 such images was tested with
the proposed algorithm, result produced was matching actual
color in all the 64 cases. Similarly to check its functionality
images with text having similar background color (e.g. Light
blue background and text in dark blue) was also used to
identification. Make it convenient for the color blind person to
detect and read text easily.
VI. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE OF WORK
Objective of the work is satisfied by the proposed method
of finding color and edges of a given image. LabVIEW IMAQ
vision and vision assistant are used as a development tool for
finding the color and edge of a color image. The whole setup of
the work is found to be cheap, feasible, flexible & effective.
When the letters are written in some colors with some other
background color, it will be difficult for the color blind to
recognize the letters. Future work of the proposed method is to
detect the text by interfacing LabVIEW with the GSM module
which is used to send processed information to user thus
helping the color blind people in recognizing the text. This
MSRIT, BANGALORE, India, 21-22 NOVEMBER 2014
work can also be extended by converting the recognized text
into speech and sending that to the blind people.
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