Universitat Heidelberg

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Niels Halama

Inka Zoernig

Dirk Jäger

The present invention relates to a method for color visualization and separation of a natural and medical image comprising pixels defined by color pixel vector a=[aa, a] in a Cartesian color space (e.g. RGB), where the color pixel vector is represented by a pure quaternion q=+ai+aj+ak with i,j, k satisfying: i=j=k=ijk=&#x2212;1, ij=&#x2212;ji=k,jk=&#x2212;kj=i, ki=&#x2212;ik=j and the image is decomposed into q+ and q using the orthogonal 2D planes split concept according to: (formula (I)) wherein/and g are pure unit quaternions or f and g describe interactively determined or computed colors (s, s). The method allows not only visualizing and separating certain colors in a digital image in a rapid fashion, but also permits a flexible definition pertinent to the kind of colors that can be visualized or separated by defining the corresponding decompositions by means of pure unit quaternions/and g. Colors s, scan be defined manually or computed automatically from the image.

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Heidelberg, Germany

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