ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the irregular two-dimensional area by representing it graphically, in the traditional way, as a similarity. It discusses methods of mapping the shape into numerical approximation by dividing the plane into quadrats or squares. One way in which the numerical description may be made more terse is by scanning the shape in the manner of the cathode ray raster on a television screen. Another way of describing planar shapes is by linear interpolation. This method takes points on the boundary of the shape and joins them together in a chain of straight lines. Another field where pattern recognition has become a central subject of research is machine intelligence. The chapter briefly discusses the conceptual basis of the approach, which relies on considerable computation.
