Detection and segmentation of sweeps in color graphics images

A method for detecting and segmenting sweeps in a graphics image, including the steps of:

• a) transforming an input graphics image to a three-dimensional histogram in color space;
• b) estimating two-dimensional histograms for each of the color channels from the three-dimensional histogram;
• c) processing each of the two-dimensional histograms to detect sweep segment information;
• and
• d) segmenting the input graphics image into sweep and non-sweep areas using the sweep segment information.

A method for detecting and segmenting sweeps in a graphics image, including the steps of:

• converting an input graphics image to a color space;
• projecting the image represented in the color space to a plurality of planes;
• detecting curves in each plane;
• identifying pixels of the color associated with each detected curve and storing such pixel information;
• and
• combining the pixel information for each color to determine if pixels of that color are part of a sweep.