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On second thought, if skelatonisation is a mathematical
process which simplifies but does not change the meaning
of the thing being operated on, and the medial axis is
some refined representation of the nature of that which
has been exhaustively skelatonised, then it's possible that
it is an acceptable use of the word.
Best regards,
Thom Randolph
thom -at- halcyon -dot- com
At 10:10 AM 8/19/99 +0100, Sybille Sterk wrote:
>Dear all,
>
>In one of my manuals which is an update from a previous version I have the
>following sentence:
>
>"Exhaustive skeletonisation will continue to reduce the size of the object
>until the medial axis is found; we can therefore say the skeletonisation is
>an idempotent operation."
>
>This sentence has been written by a product specialist and although the
>word 'idempotent' struck me as odd I didn't query it at the time, thinking
>the product specialist knew what he was talking about. However now one of
>the proof-readers has queried it,too, and I thought I find out if anyone
>knows what it means and if it is used correctly in this context. (I tried
>to look it up in a few dictionaries but couldn't find it, so I am not even
>sure if it is a real word or just made-up.)
>
>Any ideas?
>
>TIA,
>
>Sybille
>
>
>
>Sybille Sterk
>Technical Author and Translator (German)
>email: sybille -at- wofabgroovy -dot- net
>
>From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000==
>
