Patent ID: 8249360

Claim:
A method for an automated comparison of two sets of measuring values, comprising: assigning the measuring values of the two sets respectively to one class from a finite number of classes defined by indices so that a frequency distribution is defined respectively for each of the two sets, which frequency distribution indicates for each class a frequency of the measuring values assigned to this class; calculating a distance measure reflecting a similarity or dissimilarity between the two sets of measuring values between these frequency distributions as a function of a final value of a first auxiliary value termed here match by way of example; calculating the first auxiliary value match by an algorithm using two sets of variables in that, with a given maximum distance d max ≧1 for all integral distances d with 0≦d≦d max , beginning with d=0 and continuing to larger distances d, respectively for all indices i and j at a distance from each other by the distance d; a current value of a further auxiliary value is defined as m =min ( q i ′, v j ′) wherein m stands for the further auxiliary value, q i ′ for the variables of a first of the two sets of variables and v j ′ for the variables of the second set of variables, the variables of the two sets of variables being defined at the beginning of the algorithm as q i ′=q i , v j ′=v j , wherein q i stands for the frequencies from a first of the two frequency distributions and v j for the frequencies of the second frequency distribution; after which, defining again respectively the variables q i ′ and v j ′ by subtracting the current value of the further auxiliary value m and the current value of the further auxiliary value m, multiplied by a matrix element a i , j , is added to a current value of the first auxiliary value match defined originally as match=0, the matrix elements a i, j forming a similarity matrix with a i, i =1 for all indices i and 0≦a i, j ≦1 for all indices i and j at a distance of at most d max with i≠j.