I have worked on porting the color detection code from Matlab to Python. We decided to move away from using Matlab in conjunction with Python to remove any possible delays in sending data between the two running processes.
Matlab has several functions that make dealing with image matrices easy and computationally fast. I am looking in to finding similar functions that I can use with Python so that searching for elements in an image matrix is not O(n^2) complexity. I have been working with numpy to try and achieve this. However, numpy matrices are maximum two dimensional. This is necessary so that we can get a reasonable real time response within our ideal metric of within 1 second. Additionally, I am installing and familiarizing myself with Python toolkits such as scikit-image, matplotlib, numpy and scipy since there are no inbuilt functions for color space conversion in Python. If these tools prove to be unsuitable for our purposes, I will consider using OpenCV for color spaces.
My progress is on schedule. I aim to complete implementing the color detection and move on to SVM in the next couple weeks.