One embodiment of the invention provides a process and related apparatus
for obtaining quantitative data about a 2-dimensional, 3-dimensional
image, or other dimensional image. For example, the invention is capable
of classifying and counting the number of entities an image contains.
Each entity comprises an entity, structure, or some other type of
identifiable portion of the image having definable characteristics. The
entities located within an image may have a different shape, color,
texture, or other definable characteristic, but still belong to the same
classification. In other instances, entities comprising a similar color,
and texture may be classified as one type while entities comprising a
different color, and texture may be classified as another type. An image
may contain multiple entities and each entity may belong to a different
class. Thus, the system embodying the invention may quantify image data
according to a set of changing criteria and derive one or more
classifications for the entities in the image. Once the image data is
classified, the total number of entities in the image is calculated and
presented to the user. Put simply, embodiments of the invention provides
a way for a computer to determine what kind of entities (e.g., entities)
are in an image and counts the total number of entities that can be
visually identified in the image. Another aspect of the invention is that
the information utilized during a training process may be stored and
applied across different images.