The fast Fourier transform (FFI? is applied on the sampled boundary distances (SBD) of an object image for recognition.The SgD is an ordered collection of samples of distances defined from an axis (e.g. a major axis, an axis of symmetry) to points located on the boundary of the object image. With the FFTSBD approach, any object image which undergoes affine transformations such as translation, rotation, scaling and stretching (along and/or perpendicular to the stretching axis) can be recognized. Therefore, the FlTSBD can be used to recognize an object at various locations, orientations and distances from the camera and various objects of the same family which are stretched along an axis. FF'EBD can be used to recognize heavily occluded objects provided that the endpoints of major axis are Visible. FFTSBD can also be used to recognize family of objects stretching along an axis provided that the endpoints of that axis are visible. Further, SBD can also be used to extract axis of symmetry and to detect symmehy from a partdly occluded object provided that the endpoints of major axis and axis of symmetry are not occluded. Some experimental results are presented.