An icon can be considered a generalization of a pixel. That suggests developing image processing
operations in which icons instead of pixels are used as the basic element, i.e. that icons would play the role
that pixels do in image processing operations. A variety of operations have been developed in the context
of image processing [6]. The extension of these operations to icons still has not been explored, even
though the kind of visual representation this technique produces is in some sense suitable of being used as
an input to many image processing algorithms. Many of these algorithms have the purpose of enhancing
visible differences among regions in the image with differing but not clearly visible statistical differences.
The same idea could be extended to the iconographic technique in order to make the presence of patterns in the
data more visually apparent.