Patent ID: 8290250

Claim:
A method comprising: adding a new observer to a network of observers in a machine-implemented processing system, the network including a plurality of observers operatively coupled to each other in successive stages, each stage including at least two observers, each of the plurality of observers configured to produce an output in response to recognizing a different type of pattern in an input image; and configuring the new observer to recognize a pattern in the input image in the machine-implemented processing system, based on output of at least one observer of the plurality of observers, wherein said configuring includes responsive to input from a user, specifying a set of upstream observers from which the new observer is to receive input; responsive to input from the user, specifying a location in the input image to which to initialize each of the pattern filters; responsive to input from the user, specifying a set of pattern filters using which the new observer is to process input from upstream observers; responsive to input from the user, specifying a location in the input image to which to initialize each of the pattern filters.