Patent ID: 7103219

Claim:
A method of fitting a plurality of sub-population functions to digital image data, comprising the steps of: defining a plurality of collections and a set of bins, each of said collections having an initial set of functions corresponding to different ones of said bins, said functions each having one or more function parameters; determining a plurality of fitness values, each of said fitness values defining a difference between a respective one of said collections and the data; comparing each said fitness value to stopping criteria to determine if said stopping criteria is satisfied; if, at said comparing step, said stopping criteria is not satisfied, then altering said plurality of collections to provide a next generation of said collections; and following said altering step, iterating said determining, comparing, and altering steps; wherein one or more of said altering steps further comprise: randomly selecting one of said collections of the respective said next generation and one of said bins; if the randomly selected bin and one of said functions in the randomly selected collection correspond, deleting said corresponding function; if the randomly selected bin has no corresponding function in the randomly selected collection, adding to the randomly selected collection a new function corresponding to said randomly selected bin, said new function having one or more randomly selected function parameters.