Anchors for location-based navigation and augmented reality applications

1. A tangible medium having a machine-readable symbol printed thereon,

such that the symbol encodes a specified digital value in a set of color elements having different, respective colors, to be identified in an image of the symbol as red, green, blue, cyan, magenta and yellow color elements, respectively,

wherein the symbol is produced by applying cyan, magenta and yellow pigments to a substrate so as to produce the color elements, such that the color elements exhibit the following red, green, and blue intensity characteristics when measured in an sRGB color space:

for the red color elements, the red intensity is greater than twice the blue and green intensities;

for the green color elements, the green intensity is greater than twice the red and blue intensities;

for the blue color elements, the blue intensity is greater than twice the red and green intensities;

for the cyan color element, the blue and green intensities are both greater than twice the red intensity;

for the magenta color element, the red and blue intensities are both greater than twice the green intensity; and

for the yellow color element, the red and green intensities are both greater than twice the blue intensity.

2. The medium according to claim 1 , wherein the color elements comprise polygons, and wherein the symbol comprises a plurality of the polygons meeting at a common vertex.

3. The medium according claim 2 , wherein the colors of the polygons are selected and applied to the tangible medium such that none of the binary values is constant over all of the polygons meeting at the common vertex.

4. The medium according to claim 2 , wherein the polygons are rectangles.

5. The medium according to claim 1 , wherein the digital value is encoded by assigning to each color a three-bit code comprising respective binary values representing three primary color components of the colors of the color elements, and combining the digital codes to give the specified digital value.

6. A tangible medium having a machine-readable symbol provided thereon,

such that the symbol encodes a specified digital value in a set of color elements having different, respective colors, to be identified in an image of the symbol as red, green, blue, cyan, magenta and yellow color elements, respectively,

wherein the symbol is produced by applying cyan, magenta and yellow pigments to a substrate so as to produce the color elements, such that the color elements exhibit red, green, and blue intensity characteristics when measured in an sRGB color space that satisfy a relation:

(

1

-

H

c

0

-

L

c

0

L

c

1

-

L

c

0

-

H

c

1

-

L

c

1

H

c

1

-

H

c

0

)

>

0.8

for each color c=red, green, blue,

wherein H I c and L I c are the highest and lowest observed values, respectively, of the color c among the color elements that are expected to contain the color c, while H 0 c and L 0 c are the highest and lowest observed values of the color c among the color elements that are expected not to contain the color c.

7. The medium according to claim 6 , wherein the color elements comprise polygons, and wherein the symbol comprises a plurality of the polygons meeting at a common vertex.

8. The medium according claim 7 , wherein the colors of the polygons are selected and applied to the tangible medium such that none of the binary values is constant over all of the polygons meeting at the common vertex.

9. The medium according to claim 7 , wherein the polygons are rectangles.

10. The medium according to claim 6 , wherein the digital value is encoded by assigning to each color a three-bit code comprising respective binary values representing three primary color components of the colors of the color elements, and combining the digital codes to give the specified digital value.