<title>Hybrid image recognition architecture</title>

Abstract

Current research on artificial vision and pattern recognition tends to concentrate either on numerical processing (filtering, morphological, spectral) or in symbolic or subsymbolic processing (neural networks, fuzzy logic, knowledge-based systems). In this work we combine both kinds of processing in a hybrid image processing architecture. The numerical processing part implements the most usual facilities (equalization, convolution filters, morphological filters, segmentation and description) in a way adequate to transform the input image into a polygonal outline. Then recognition is performed with a rule-based system implemented in Prolog. This allows a neat high-level representation of the patterns to recognize as a set of logical relations (predicates), and also the recognition procedure is represented as a set of logical rules. To integrate the numerical and logical components of our system, we embedded a Prolog interpreter as a software component within a visual programming language. Thus, our architecture features both the speed and versatility of a visual language application, and the abstraction level and modularity of a logical description.