Classifying Color Codes Via k-Mean Clustering and L*a*b* Color Model

To reduce the effect of color distortions on reading colors, it is more desirable to statistically process as many pixels in the individual color region as possible. This process may require segmentation, which usually requires edge detection. However, edges in color codes can be disconnected due to various distortions such as dark current, color cross, zipper effect, shade and reflection, to name a few. Edge linking is also a difficult process. In this paper, k-means clustering was performed on the images where edge detectors failed segmentation. Experiments were conducted on 311 images taken in different environments with different cameras. The primary and secondary colors were randomly selected for each color code region. While segmentation rate by edge detectors was 89.4%, the proposed method increased it to 99.4%. Color recognition was performed based on hue, a*, and b* components, with the accuracy of 100% for the successfully segmented cases.