C++ Counting Shapes in Image

[Marrodriguez]

hello, im working on a college program in which I need to be able to take a picture of several pebbles scattered randomly on the floor, somehow import that into my program, and then run it so that the output is the total number of pebbles in the image. I converted the image into a text file but i dont know if this is the best way to do this. Can someone please give me some orientation on how to get the program to recognize the shapes and then give me the total? I would really appreciate it! thanks in advance!

[PanGalactic]

http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/articles/1295/