Colour thresholding in video imaging.

The basic aspects of video imaging are reviewed as they relate to measurements of histological and anatomical features, with particular emphasis on the advantages and disadvantages of colour and black-and-white imaging modes. In black-and-white imaging, calculations are based on the manipulation of picture elements (pixels) that contain 0-255 levels of information. Black is represented by the absence of light (0) and white by 255 grades of light. In colour imaging, the pixels contain variation of hues for the primary (red, green and blue) and secondary (magenta, yellow, cyan, pink) colours. Manipulation of pixels with colour information is more computer intense than that for black-and-white pixels, because there are over 16 million possible combinations of colour in a system with a 24-bit resolution. The narrow 128 possible grades of separation in black and white often makes distinction between pixels with overlapping intensities difficult. Such difficulty is greatly reduced by colour thresholding of systems that base the representation of colour on a combination of hue-saturation-intensity (HSI) format.