Deals with the development of electronic databases, image preprocessing, automatic contour extraction, the application of existing contour and ornamentation features and the development of new ones, as well as the application of different classifiers, e.g. neural networks and decision trees. These are tested using two image sets: (i) a very difficult set of Sellaphora pupula with 6 demes and 120 images; (ii) a mixed genera set with 37 taxa and approximately 800 images. The results are compared with identification rates obtained by human experts.