A method and apparatus for characterizing an image. The method selects one
or more toboggan potentials from the image, or a portion thereof, to be
tobogganed. It toboggans the selected toboggan potentials to generate one
or more toboggan parameters, forming at least one toboggan cluster using
one or more of the toboggan parameters. It also selects one or more of
the toboggan clusters to compute at least one feature parameter to
characterize the image or a portion thereof.