Efficient initialization scheme for the self-organizing feature map algorithm

It is often reported in the technique literature that the success of the self-organizing feature map formation is critically dependent on the initial weights and the selection of main parameters of the algorithm, namely, the learning-rate parameter and the neighborhood function. In this paper, we propose an efficient initialization scheme to construct an initial map. We then use the self-organizing feature map algorithm to make small subsequent adjustments so as to improve the accuracy of the initial map. Two data sets are tested to illustrate the performance of the proposed method.