Patent Document ID: 5481620
Application ID: 07767339
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of identifying at least one valid object having at least one predetermined attribute value in a background, comprising the steps of: (a) generating an image of the object and the background; (b) generating a gray level histogram of the image, the gray level histogram having an entropy function; (c) entropically selecting a threshold gray level such that the entropy function of the histogram is maximized; (d) searching the image using the entropically selected threshold gray level for at least one candidate object, wherein the candidate object has at least one candidate object attribute value; (e) validating the candidate object having the valid object predetermined attribute value to identify [the]a valid object; (f) subdividing the gray level histogram into an upper histogram and a lower histogram using the entropic threshold gray level as defined by step (c) as an upper delimiter and a lower delimiter; and (g) recursively repeating steps (c)-(f) for each of the upper and lower histograms, wherein the repetition of step (c) selects a next successive entropic threshold gray level, thereby recursively partitioning the gray level histogram until a predetermined minimum number of new valid objects is identified.