No label defined (Q3972639)

[For the entire collection see Zbl 0714.00019.] In a paper written in 1971, which was never published, \textit{J. Hammersley} and the author gave a characterization of Markov random fields on finite graphs. There are, however, many references to that paper in the literature. Also, the method of proof there is constructive and the operator techniques used are unusual. On account of these reasons, the author states the main results of the unpublished paper and describes the methods by which they were obtained. Finally, the author considers how Markov polygonal random fields might be used in the analysis of polygonal images. Some light is shed on a conjecture by \textit{T. Arak} and \textit{D. Surgailis} [Probab. Theory Relat. Fields 80, No. 4, 543-579 (1989; Zbl 0653.60079)], and a method of simulating the posterior distribution of a polygonal image is proposed.