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 0(^n) is also presented.