A New Method for Extracting Map Elements by Their Colors and Shapes from Color Cartographic Maps

A new method to extract map elements from color cartographic maps was developed. The proposed method is divided into three major sections: pre-processing, crude color segmentation, and extraction of map elements using their shapes. The whole segmenting process was done in the HSV color coordinates[l] instead of the RGB color coordinates. The preprocessing transforms the inputted RGB image into an HSV image. Then, a crude result can be achieved by applying a crude color segmentation process to the HSV image. After the color segmentation, each map element can be extracted by using its shape and color information. The proposed method can be the first process of a fully automated color