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One of the fundamental challenges in pattern recognition is choosing a set of features appropriate to a class of problems. In applications such as database retrieval, it is important that image features used in pattern comparison provide good measures of image perceptual similarities. We present an image model with a new set of features that address the challenge of perceptual similarity. The model is based on the 2D Wold decomposition of homogeneous random fields. The three resulting mutually orthogonal subfields have perceptual properties which can be described as "periodicity," "directionality," and "randomness," approximating what are indicated to be the three most important dimensions of human texture perception. The method presented improves upon earlier Wold-based models in its tolerance to a variety of local inhomogeneities which arise in natural textures and its invariance under image …