A VERSATILE COLOUR SYSTEM CAPABLE OF FRUIT

SORTING AND ACCURATE OBJECTCLASSIFICATION

Gary Kay and Gerhard de Jager

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering

University of Cape Town,Rmdebosch 7700
of 256' or over 16 million available co~0urs.

Yellow

RED

1. INTRODUCTION
The first section in this paper describes the theory behind
choosing a colour system for 011 liae fruit imagcpmcessing.Thesystemhstobeversatdeeaoughtocope
with a wide m g e of fruit colours. The system chis
based on Hue. Satunti011 .nd hhsity @SI) colour
systsms M t with in [l]. [2], a d [3].
The next section identifies the best fertures of the
HSI system, inordato.ccuntaly sort fruit inosshorta
time as possible.
The h a i section highl~ghhow the HSI features of
tbe image pixels cm be classified using cluster analysis.
The claws formed from several fruit sunpls allow for
classification and sorting of fruit.

For the plrpaws of cxperimeatation the following

equipmalt m u s e d iaordcr to display .ndpmcea fnrit
iImgC6:

RGB output cu~ltlp,the MVP-AT colour

fnmc gnbbsr, md M IBM compatible 386

16MHzmicmproccssor.
I t m rolmdthatclassifying fruit .ccording to thcir RGB
pixel componmts mcomputatidy expeasive. due. to
the large number of combidions of RGB bteamitiiesin a
pixel. Ham M alternative morc prowsable colour
system was sought after. The first alternative colour
systems looked &were :

- the x,y,z modbate 1931 chrompticity cbrrt,

- the X,Y.Zmodbatetristimuluscolourvalues,
- the L.u,v coordlllltc
.
1960 CLE uniform

2. CHOOSING THE COLOUR SYThe Red, Gism. Blue (RGB)colour system is used to
display images 011 a colour monitor. The RGB cube
shown in figure 1. rspresmts all possible coloursavailable
for display on the RGB monitor. Each primary colour is
&up
of 256 grey level intensities. This mslrts a total

Chromaticity M e (UCS).
the U*.V*.W* modhate 1964 CIE system

W.
145
TH0482-0/92/0000.0145 $1.00 01992 IEEE

Of the several mnsfomations experimeated with, m e

such trpnsfodon proved effective for apple sorting
(equations 1 and 2). The transformation was based on
those given in [I]. [2]& [3] but geomstricpUy modified
so that 00 represcntf Blue, 120' rep-&
Grren and 24$

These systems were all capable of converting the RGB

c o o d b k s respectively. However, it was only the HSI
system that showed promise as M alternative colour
system in a computingand industrial mvironmmt. as we11
as in psychologicpl visual represeatotion.

repmeats Red.

With the above RGB to HSI transformation it was

W b l e to simulate, in software.a modified version of P
RGB to HSI converter. In this HSI system all fruit
rpnging from bluish gnen to purplish rad could lie
betwear the hue angles of 5
2' and 308' respectively. This
urans that 360 lev& of hue can be mpppedto 256 levels,
and with aptions 1 and 2, SrtURtion and intensity can
also have U most 256 levels. Heace each pixel could
have three fc;rtunsof H. Sand I uEBoci.tdd with it, with
e4.I rsMnebeing ow byte si?z this 6limiMw floating
point O p e n U i ~and incrsuas classifidon speed.

The HSI system involves a (3x3) mrttix multiplication to

the (3x1) RGB column vector. This rcsult yields the
(3x1) (I.vI,v2) column vector. whm I is itmsity and
vl, v2 are line vectors which make a Hue angle and
Satuxation radius. The resultingtransformation effectively
rotates the RGB cubc of figure 1. so that a two
d i m m s i d hexagon forms. The H-S plane can be viewed
by looking along the axis from the white to the black
COmcT of the cube.
Hence in this mtated COnfiguRtonHSI can be defined
as fouows:
I)
The Line of Varying Intensity :-line from black
towhitecorner.
S)
The Line of haeasing s.tuntion :-radial line
from the centre outwrrds on the fla colour
hexagonal HS plane.
The Angle of Varying Hues :- anticlockwise
H)
angles from the line from I to a primary colour
(gg Blue).

3. CHOOSING TEE BILW FEATURES OF THE

COLOUR SY!3l'EM TO SORT FRUIT
Om may now think &at if H.S and I cm each have 256
levels thar them is no repun why o m should hawform
the R,G .ad B 256 level componcats. Howaver, the

fundamma remm for the trnnsforrmtion is that now all

colourpixels cm be rsprssented bkly accurately with one
feature - Hue. The fepturss of intensity and Bpturation ue
only I K C C B ~ Uif~further .ccu~pcyis needed.

The colour surfna of images can be morc easily

lmdnstoodin termsof HSI regions rather than RGB pixel
values in the RGB cube. There arc wed ways of
writing the t m l h m a b'on rmtrix since them is no
hkmationalstandprd. Eachtransfomationmatrix is
&ped with particular spectnl reflectance curves of
R,G,B in mind. If the curves seem equally weighted then
P mgular hexpgolr W form on the H-S PI-.
othmvise
the hexagon is irregular. The transformntion is also
de&@
with a particular colour hue as the 0 depee
starting angle.
Blue).

The foUowhg ex-tal

results show which fsotures
best mutribute to a fruit classifier.

3.1. Classifying with Hue Only

The simpcst md most effective m y to classify the fruit
colour is to use the hue hstogmn (figure 2a). The
example of figure2 shows that the p e a apple with slight
piuk blush has a hue over a certaiu m g e (162' to 2304.
By defining hue threshold levels one can get the
percentage distribution of certainhue ranges within a fruit
image.

3.2. Chsification with Hue and Saturation

The two dimsaeioarl pixel plot in figure. 2c shows how
the HS values of the fruit pixels cluster 011 the H-S plane.
In this case (as m e n t i O D e d earlier) hue angles are
mcuwQd MticlockwiBe froan the borizona (blue) U i s .
It has been fwnd that the sahuation componmt is
mmdiately dcpmdmt on the typeof lighting m the fruit.
146

2: a) the birtopnm reprrrmdI the pixel hues in the windowed

fruit. b) the windowed fruit U iGnrmy Smith with dight pink blurh.
c) the cluncn of fruit pixeli on the H-S p b .

Figrt 3: a) the -m
of dI pixel utudoasin the windowed fruit,
b) the widowed fiuit U iGnrmy Smith apple with
pink b i d , c)
the cluacring of pixels on &e 2D H-Ip b .

Hence. a yellow light (incan-t)

form a tight cluster
of green and red on a fruit, whereas a white light
(daylight) tends to distinguish gree~and d H-S clusters
more readily.

blemishes occur) the lighting must be uniform over the

fruit.

This classificationmethod is effective if a constant colour

Various cluster analysis techniques have

temperature lighting system is used. Only the hue value

represents what the actual colour is. Hence saturation
(amount of colour) and intensity (amount of whte in the
colour) histograms alone cannot classify colour.

investigated. The methods were to be used on the H-I

clusters, since it was thought that clusters were more
visually separable on the H-I plane as opposed to the H-S
plnne. Classification was not made using d three
feptures since computation time was not justified.
The following are cluster analysistechniquesinvatigated:
-the supervised classification methods of the
Bayesian Parametric classifier, and the minimum
distance classification using Euclidean distances
(51.
-the unsupervised classification methods of the
K - m algorithm, and ISODATA ([5],[6]).

4. CLASSIFYING USING CLUSIER ANALYSIS

3.3. Classifying with Hue and Intensity

It is found that blemishes on a fruit change more UI
intensity than in saturation. For further muracy in fnut
classification 4blemish identification ) the H-I plane is
used. Accuracy in classification generally meam that if
features are distinct. and can be separated easily, then
they can be classed easily. For example a dark area on
a fruit is distinct from a light area on the fruit (using
intensity), and a red area on a fruit is distinct from a
p m area (using hue).

been

It was found that the Statistical Analysis Software (SAS)

available on the Ufl Vax, provided the above (and more)
cluster analyzing methods. In particular the SAS function
'FASTCLUS' proved capable of analyzing the large data
sets of fruit H-I pixels (71. The function uses &
iteration to classify the pixel clusters. The function is
based on the K-means,nearest neighbour algorithm (as in

Figure 3c illustrates the clustering of the green apple with

slight pink blush (figure 3b), on the H-I plene.
One problem in using the intensity feature is that it varies
depending on the light positions. In order to gain the full
benefit of the intensity over the fruit 4only vary where

(51).

147

5. CONCLUSIONS

By using s e v d apple samples of varying blemish Sizes,

theunsupervlssd
. classification lod to, at moat. four
distinct dam c a m i d s @ cluster maas). It is now
possible to cm through the H-I pixels in the fruit and bin
thepix&intotbsir.ppmpnuc
. clrss(theasMstclass
d d ) . Atter the single cm a fraqusacy count for
pixasin acb class is givm. Based on tbe frrqu4ncy size
in theclrss the apple a n b e c l a d i a l w o r d h g l y .

161
171

14
64

The HSI colour system has several dvcmt.ges over other

colour systems, these ue:
- .ccunte colour classificatim is poesibk with only one
pmm#at, d
y the hue vdm;
-tbeintealsityaadsltuntimallowfa!iuthefCl.ssifying
acumcy and blemish mating;
- the timo to cbsify image using only hue is much
h t e r (by order 3) than the RGB
- a m m u b l y priced camater cm canvest RffB to HSI
and harcc allow for
d timB, rutormb'c fruit
sorting;
-cld p i ~the H-Ipllas allfor
to be
segmeated, and brJlce the M.of colour ftrltprss cm be
*al.
- suparvissd clrssificltion allows colcm pixels to be
sepmtcd just aswdl as u n q w v m
' d classification, if
tbe H-Ip h .
clustsre ~ . bs
l l v h d l y -lid

62.5
10.0

6. AKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The suptnrised method of finding the colour class

d(or cluster mems) was perfonnsd by averagiag
a d window (less the 25 pixels in area) for eacb
colour region visually nprsseating a c h on the image.
H a m the four class centroids for the Granny Smith with
sight pink blush, wm obtrioed from regions: 1) on the
light -put,
2) on the duk green put. 3) on the light
brown pmt. 4) and on the Mc brown or middle of the
blemish mgim on the fruit. colour segmmention using
tbesc four c
h and the H and1 feahues of each pixel
gave the bsst miaimurn distawe classification of the
colour pixels. It was found tlut from most fruit h u g e
expwin~~ts
(see Table I for an example), the class
aatraids with H-I farturts 0bt.ined by supmissd
CLssifiCrtion (mmuruy selecting clrsses) werc as good as
thcseobEpinsdbyumupemd
*
classifidon (K-merns
iteration to find clrssss). However, the unsupen)ised
clasdication method gave a bttter colour segmeatation
w h a ~the pixels OII the H-I plane formed a tight cluster
md msny colour clpsses (four) wtre difficult to visually

Thanks go to the employees of Tddogic in Soxmmet

West. witlnmt whom this project d d not have bem
initiated md to Teklogic for wxpport.
7. REmRENcEs

[l] Lehr A.F.. Stova3 R.J.,(1984): 'Highspeed

M.niprl.tion of the coiaur chrormticity of Digital
Inmgaz'.IEEE CGBtA, Fsbnrrry pp 34-39.
[2] Niblack W.(1986): ' h g o Display'. An Intmduction
toDigit8lImrgepIocsgan
.g.chz*pp23-67.
[3] Data Tnnsl.tion Mand. Data TrrnsLtion krc.
[4] W y d G., Stiles W., (1967): colour &am,
ppssim.
[5] Niblack W. (1986): 'c1.ssifiCrticm'. An Introduction
to Digital Image procasSine. Q7. pp 167-189.
[6] Ball G., Hall D.. (1%5) : ISODATA,A Novel
Method of Data Analysis and p.#em Classification.
SASlSTAT Users Guide (1990): 'The FASTCLUS
procedure'. 4th al.. V011, Ch22. pp 823-850.

diStinguish.

148