Patent ID: 8577143

Claim:
A method for reusing one or more labels in a connected component labeling system, the method comprising: a. determining a location value for each of the one or more labels, each location value identifying a maximum “y” extent (“yMax”) of an associated label region by assigning as the yMax value a y coordinate for each label of the one or more labels located in a memory, the y coordinate assignment based on a row level in the memory; and determining the y coordinate as a function of the row level in the memory wherein the memory is a data buffer configured to receive label and region information in a receiving row; and determining the row level according to raster order of rows wherein the rows are formed by moving data up from a bottom row to a top row; b. determining which of the one or more labels refer to areas subsumed in a determination of the yMax location value; and c. reusing the one or more labels subsumed in the determination of the yMax location value.