Spectrally layered color indexing

Abstract

Image patches of different roughness are likely to have different perceptual significance. In this paper, we introduce a method, which separates an image into layers, each of which retains only pixels in areas with similar spectral distribution characteristics. Simple color indexing is used to index the layers individually. By indexing the layers separately, we are implicitly associating the indices with perceptual and physical meanings thus greatly enhancing the power of color indexing while keeping its simplicity and elegance. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method.