Recognition of patterns in images

摘要

A pattern (e.g., the normal or abnormal characteristics of a biological cell) within an image is recognized based on visual characteristics of the pattern, the image being represented by signals whose values correspond to the visual characteristics, using a location channel which determines the location of the pattern within the image based on the signal values, and a classification channel which categorizes the pattern based on the signal values, the location channel and the classification channel operating in parallel and cooperatively to recognize the pattern. In other aspects, there the orientations of edges of the pattern within subwindows of the image are analyzed as are the strengths of edges of the pattern near the periphery of portions of the image; an unsupervised classifier defines internal representation classes of objects, and a supervised classifier maps the classes to user-specified categories; and there is a feedback path from the classification channel to the location channel to cause the location channel to adapt to classification results generated by the classification channel.