1-D scan that follows the Peano curve to a desired resolution is demonstrated to preserve a 2-D proximity relationship and is shown to be efficient for wavelet transform (WT) processing and artificial neural network pattern recognition. This deterministic fractal sampling method can be implemented in real time using optoelectronic scanning. For example, 2-D texture patterns are analyzed by using 1 -D wavelet transformation. Those WT coefficients can be fed into a standard back-propagation neural network for pattern recognition.