Implementation Issues

Ridge construction is not just a straightforward application of the mathematical models presented in Chapters 3 through 5. Care must be taken when attempting to implement these ideas. Like most computational problems involving a large amount of multidimensional data, there is a desire to obtain the results in a reasonable amount of time. This requirement is typically satisfied by optimizations which reduce the amount of data to be processed and/or which reduce the number of operations per datum in obtaining the results. There is also a desire to obtain the results in a robust fashion. Given any reasonable input to the algorithm, one would always like to obtain output, and the output should be accurate.