1. In a computing environment, a method of performing word recognition operations to determine what an image of a word represents, the method comprising: accessing a first image, the first image representing an image version of a word; accessing a second image, the second image representing an image version of a word; applying a mesh to the second image using 2-D dynamic programming by: applying the mesh to the second image horizontally using 1-D dynamic programming such that vertices of the mesh in the horizontal direction are coarsely aligned and at least some of the vertices in the horizontal direction are not evenly spaced; independently applying the mesh to the second image vertically using 1_D dynamic programming such that vertices of the mesh in the vertical direction are coarsely aligned and at least some of the vertices in the vertical direction are not evenly spaced; warping the second image to cause the second image to approximately match the first image by moving vertices of the mesh to warp the second image; and determining the difference between the warped second image and the unwarped first image.