In this work, we present a segmentation algorithm for color images that uses the watershed algorithm to segment either the two-dimensional (2-D) or the three-dimensional (3-D) color histogram of an image. For compliance with the way humans perceive color, this segmentation has to take place in a perceptually uniform color space like the Luv space. To avoid oversegmentation, the watershed algorithm has to be applied to a smoothed histogram.

A new method is proposed for processing randomly textured color images. The method is based on a bottom-up segmentation algorithm that takes into consideration both color and texture properties of the image. An LUV gradient is introduced, which provides both a color similarity measure and a basis for applying the watershed transform. The patches of watershed mosaic are merged according to their color contrast until a termination criterion is met. This criterion is based on the topology of the typical processed image. The resulting algorithm does not require any additional information, be it various thresholds, marker extraction rules, and suchlike, thus being suitable for automatic processing of color images. The algorithm is demonstrated within the framework of the problem of automatic granite inspection. The segmentation procedure has been found to be very robust, producing good results not only on granite images, but on the wide range of other noisy color images as well, subject to the termination criterion.