The essays in this volume broadly represent contributions to one of the fundamental issues facing the biological sciences—the ability to quantify, in a thorough and complete manner, the visual information inherent in all biological organisms, information readily apparent yet remaining inexorably difficult to adequately characterize. One such technique is Fourier descriptors. This volume does not claim to be an exhaustive survey of Fourier descriptors, nor does it represent the last word. However, it is a first attempt in the direction of a more complete representation (or model) of the biological form.

This volume brings together a number of investigators who have used Fourier descriptors in very diverse contexts for the numerical description of the biological form. The term Fourier descriptors in the title refers to the utilization of Fourier analysis, primarily the Fourier series as a curve-fitting technique. Applications focuses more on the utilization of these analytical methods with actual data sets.

Although the majority of this book deals with data analysis as distinct from theory, there is a certain amount of chapter overlap with respect to a number of theoretical issues on the one hand, and techniques on the other. This situation seems to be inevitable with an edited volume of this type and can be desirable from the reader's point of view.