Image recognition and reconstruction are common problems in many image processing systems. These problems can be formulated as a solution to the linear inverse problem. This article presents a machine learning system model that can be used in the reconstruction and recognition of vectorized images. The analyzed inverse problem is given by the equations 𝐹(𝒙 𝒊 ) = 𝒚 𝑖 and 𝒙 𝑖 = 𝐹 −1 (𝒚 𝑖 ), 𝑖 = 1, … , 𝑁, where 𝐹(•) is a linear mapping for 𝒙 𝑖 ∈ 𝑋 ⊂ 𝑅 𝑛 , 𝒚 𝑖 ∈ 𝑌 ⊂ 𝑅 𝑚 . Thus, 𝒚 𝑖 can be seen as a projection of image 𝒙 𝑖 , and 𝒙 𝑖 should be reconstructed as a solution to the inverse problem. We consider image reconstruction as an inverse problem using two different schemes. The first one, when 𝒙 𝑖 = 𝐹 −1 (𝒚 𝑖 ), can be seen as an operation with associative memory, and the second one, when 𝒙 𝑖 = 𝐹 −1 (𝒚 𝑖 ), can be implemented by creating random vectors for training sets. Moreover, we point out that the solution to the inverse problem can be generalized to complex-valued images 𝒙 𝑖 and 𝒚 𝑖 . In this paper, we propose a machine learning model based on a spectral processor as an alternative solution to deep learning based on optimization procedures.INDEX TERMS Machine learning systems, image reconstruction and recognition, inverse problem.