# US 2018/0025509 A1 · Image processing apparatus replacing color of portion in image into single color, image processing method, and storage medium > Agents: this data is available as JSON from the patentgrep API and MCP server — see https://patentgrep.com/llms.txt - Number: US 2018/0025509 A1 - Document ID: US20180025509A1 - Status: Published application - Kind: A1 - Application number: 15/648,285 - Filed: 2017-07-12 - Published: 2018-01-25 - Earliest claimed: 2016-07-25 - Assignees: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha - Applicants: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha - Inventors: Koya Shimamura - Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US20180025509A1 ## CPC - G06T 11/10: Texturing; Colouring; Generation of textures or colours (retouching, inpainting or scratch removal G06T5/77) - G06T 5/40: using histogram techniques - G06T 5/70: Denoising; Smoothing - G06T 7/136: involving thresholding - G06T 7/187: involving region growing; involving region merging; involving connected component labelling - G06T 7/194: involving foreground-background segmentation - G06T 7/90: Determination of colour characteristics - G06V 10/46: Descriptors for shape, contour or point-related descriptors, e.g. scale invariant feature transform [SIFT] or bags of words [BoW]; Salient regional features (colour feature extraction G06V10/56) - H04N 1/6011: {with simulation on a subsidiary picture reproducer (H04N1/622 takes precedence; matching two or more picture reproducers H04N1/6052)} - H04N 1/6019: {using look-up tables (H04N1/6025 takes precedence)} - H04N 1/6086: {by scene illuminant, i.e. conditions at the time of picture capture, e.g. flash, optical filter used, evening, cloud, daylight, artificial lighting, white point measurement, colour temperature} - H04N 1/62: Retouching, i.e. modification of isolated colours only or in isolated picture areas only - G06T 2207/10024: Color image - G06T 2207/20192: Edge enhancement; Edge preservation - G06T: IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL - G06V: IMAGE OR VIDEO RECOGNITION OR UNDERSTANDING - H04N: PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION ## Abstract An image processing method for processing an image includes determining, selecting, and replacing. It is determined whether a portion, including a plurality of pixels and darker than a threshold in the image, is subject to a color replacement. One predetermined color from among a plurality of predetermined colors is selected, based on a color of at least a part of the plurality of pixels. Based on the determination, a color of the portion is replaced with the selected one predetermined color. ## Claims ### Claim 1 An image processing method for processing an image, the image processing method comprising: determining whether a portion, including a plurality of pixels and darker than a threshold in the image, is subject to a color replacement; selecting one predetermined color from among a plurality of predetermined colors, based on a color of at least a part of the plurality of pixels; and replacing, based on the determination, a color of the portion with the selected one predetermined color. ### Claim 2 (depends on 1) The image processing method according to claim 1, wherein determining includes determining based on a similarity of colors of the plurality of pixels. ### Claim 3 (depends on 2) The image processing method according to claim 2, wherein the similarity is evaluated by a variance of the colors of the plurality of pixels. ### Claim 4 (depends on 3) The image processing method according to claim 3, wherein the variance is a variance of color-difference components of the colors of the plurality of pixels. ### Claim 5 (depends on 1) The image processing method according to claim 1, further comprising binarizing the image using the threshold to find the portion darker than the threshold. ### Claim 6 (depends on 1) The image processing method according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of predetermined colors includes a predetermined red, a predetermined blue, and a predetermined black. ### Claim 7 (depends on 1) The image processing method according to claim 1, wherein selecting includes selecting based on a representative color value of colors of the plurality of pixels and color values of the respective predetermined colors. ### Claim 8 (depends on 1) The image processing method according to claim 1, wherein determining and selecting are performed on a plurality of portions darker than the threshold in the image and, in a case where selecting includes selecting the one predetermined color for the plurality of portions, replacing includes replacing colors of the plurality of portions with the same selected one predetermined color, based on the determination. ### Claim 9 (depends on 1) The image processing method according to claim 1, further comprising: determining whether another portion, including a plurality of pixels and darker than the threshold in the image, is subject to a color replacement; selecting another predetermined color from among the plurality of predetermined colors, based on a color of at least a part of the plurality of pixels included in the another portion; determining whether a distance between the portion and the another portion is less than a threshold distance; and replacing a color of the another portion with the one predetermined color selected for the portion, instead of the selected another predetermined color, based on the determination that the another portion is subject to a color replacement and the determination that the distance is less than the threshold distance. ### Claim 10 (depends on 1) The image processing method according to claim 1 further comprising displaying the image including the portion whose color has been replaced with the selected one predetermined color. ### Claim 11 (depends on 1) The image processing apparatus according to claim 1 further comprising smoothing a contour of the portion whose color has been replaced with the one predetermined color. ### Claim 12 (depends on 11) The image processing method according to claim 11, wherein smoothing includes determining, based on a shape of the contour, a color with which a color of at least one pixel adjacent to the contour is to be replaced, and replacing the at least one adjacent pixel with the determined color. ### Claim 13 (depends on 1) The image processing method according to claim 1, wherein the image is an image of a whiteboard captured by an image capturing unit, and wherein the portion corresponds to a portion in the whiteboard drawn with a marker pen by a user. ### Claim 14 An imaging device for processing an image, comprising: one or more processors; and memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the imaging device to perform operations comprising: determining whether a portion, including a plurality of pixels and darker than a threshold in the image, is subject to a color replacement; selecting one predetermined color from among a plurality of predetermined colors, based on a color of at least a part of the plurality of pixels; and replacing, based on the determination, a color of the portion with the selected one predetermined color.