The Pandora software development kit for pattern recognition

The development of automated solutions to pattern recognition problems is important in many areas of scientific research and human endeavour. This paper describes the implementation of the Pandora software development kit, which aids the process of designing, implementing and running pattern recognition algorithms. The Pandora Application Programming Interfaces ensure simple specification of the building-blocks defining a pattern recognition problem. The logic required to solve the problem is implemented in algorithms. The algorithms request operations to create or modify data structures and the operations are performed by the Pandora framework. This design promotes an approach using many decoupled algorithms, each addressing specific topologies. Details of algorithms addressing two pattern recognition problems in High Energy Physics are presented: reconstruction of events at a high-energy e^+e^- linear collider and reconstruction of cosmic ray or neutrino events in a liquid argon time projection chamber.