1. In a computer-aided pattern recognition system, a method for recognizing a pattern comprising the steps of: digitizing said pattern to obtain a digital representation of said pattern; converting said digital representation of said pattern into an optimized descriptor set by repeated parametrization and transformation; determining in a descriptor space, using said optimized descriptor set, a decision region in which said optimized descriptor set lies, said decision region having an associated class label; and converting said class label to a recognition result.