Receptive Fields within the Combinatorial Pyramid Framework

A hierarchical structure is a stack of successively reduced image representations. Each basic element of a hierarchical structure is the father of a set of elements in the level below. The transitive closure of this father–child relationship associates to each element of the hierarchy a set of basic elements in the base level image representation. Such a set, called a receptive field, defines the embedding of one element on the original image. Combinatorial pyramids are defined as a stack of successively reduced combinatorial maps, each combinatorial map being defined by two permutations acting on a set of half edges named darts. The basic element of a combinatorial pyramid is thus the dart. This paper defines the receptive field of each dart within a combinatorial pyramid and study the main properties of these sets. 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.