Recognizing hand-printed digits with a distance quasi-metric

A distance quasi-metric for pattern recognition is presented. The ``quasi{''} modifier distinguishes the metric from ``true{''} distance metrics which obey a set of standard constraints. By relaxing one of the constraints and coupling it with a fast multidimensional search technique, the metric demonstrates improved accuracy and efficiency compared to other metrics in recognizing hand-written digit samples. A high-level design of a fast optical comparator for computing the distance in O(rootn) is also presented. (C) 2000 Academic Press.