The formal description and parsing of pictures [Thesis]
Alan Shaw, US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), USDOE · 1968
This thesis is concerned with the analysis and generation of pictures by computer. The name "picture processing" will be used to describe this subject area. While there is occasional reference to generation, the main emphasis is on the more difficult problem of analysis. The latter has been traditionally called pattern recognition or classification; here, analysis is interpreted more generally to mean the derivation of. picture descriptions. A distinction between "natural" and "artificial" pictures can be I made analogous to that between natural and artificial languages. Artificial languages and subsets of natural languages can be effectively analyzed using formal methods for expressing and dealing with syntax and semantics. A similar approach has been developed here for the analysis of suitably restricted classes of pictures. Any picture whose component connectivity can be meaningfully described by a graph is a candidate for the system. This will be the operational definition of an artificial picture.