Abstract: Serial neighborhood image processing stages, preferably arranged in a pipeline, are used to layout conductor paths on circuits such as printed circuit boards and integrated circuit devices. Pixels associated with areas on the circuit corresponding with source, target, free and blocked cells are encoded with preselected pixel values. The circuit image is then transmitted to the neighborhood transformation stages in a raster scan line format. The stages analyze the pixel values in each neighborhood and transform free cells into digital representations of conductor paths between the source and target.