Interpreting shapes from BitmapData

I’m sure a lot of have have seen the GE Augmented Reality site.
http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/augmented_reality

I’m working on something that has similar logic, and was wondering if there was a tutorial out there on the basics.

My thinking is that you would look at a color range of pixels. Then, within that color range, you would look for certain arrangements.

My initial thought is that this color range would be similar to the “color threshold” example on this motion-detection project:

Any thoughts?