1. A system to transform an input signal ( 5800 ) presented from a sensor ( 5900 ) into a spatial sequence characteristic of the signal in real-time, the system comprising: a. an input module ( 5100 ) configured to divide the input signal ( 5800 ) into a sequence of signal values ( 5810 ) and present them in order of production to the following stage; and b. a comparator module ( 5200 ) coupled to the input module ( 5100 ) configured to accept each element value of the sequence of signal values ( 5810 ), the comparator module ( 5200 ) comprises a multiplicity of individual comparators which generate binary values assembled into a word of bits ( 5210 ) whose word value correlates the input sequence element value with a vector of reference values ( 5250 ) to effect a level crossing sampler, and which assembled word value is utilized to encode a memory address ( 5230 ), each component reference value of the reference vector ( 5250 ) being fed to a corresponding one of the individual comparators with the reference value vector ( 5250 ) being provided by an external agent; wherein the system effects the conversion of a signal into an ordered collection of spatial values, the spatial values being the addresses of memory locations.