Horst Bischof has been Rector of TU Graz since October 2023. Before that he was Vice Rector for Research at TU Graz since 2011. The computer scientist was a visiting professor at the Institute of Computer Graphics and Vision at TU Graz before he was appointed Professor of Computer Vision in 2004.As Vice Rector for Research, Horst Bischof has been responsible for the strategic research orientation of TU Graz as well as research and business cooperation and technology transfer since 2011. He has published close to 800 scientific works and has been presented with national and international awards for his publications among them the most Influential Paper over the Decade Award from MVA 2019, the Jan Konderink award at ECCV 2018, the 29th Pattern Recognition award in 2002, the main price of the German Association for Pattern Recognition (DAGM) in 2007 and 2012. The research portal Research.com lists him as the third most cited computer scientist in Austria.Horst Bischof is head of the AI board of the Austrian government.

• List of Figures. List of Tables. Preface. 1. Introduction 2. Networks versus Pyramids 3. Structural Considerations 4. Contents and Representation 5. Processing 6. Learning Pyramids 7. Hierarchical Learning 8. Conclusion and Outlook. Bibliography. Author Index. Subject Index.