Tactile imaging, also called "mechanical imaging", "stress imaging" or "computerized palpation", is a medical imaging modality that translates the sense of touch into a digital image. The tactile image is a function of P(x,y,z), where P is the pressure on soft tissue surface under applied deformation and x,y,z are coordinates where pressure P was measured. The tactile image is a pressure map on which the direction of tissue deformation must be specified. Tactile imaging closely mimics manual palpation, since the probe of the device with a pressure sensor array mounted on its face acts similar to human fingers during clinical examination, deforming soft tissue by the probe and detecting resulting changes in the pressure pattern. Interpretation: Inverse problem solution for P(x,y,z) would allow reconstruction of the tissue elasticity distribution (E) as function of the same coordinates E(x,y,z). The tissue elasticity image brings valuable information about the tissue or organ because the tissue elasticity modulus is highly sensitive to tissue structural changes accompanying various physiological and pathological processes. Unfortunately, the inverse problem solution is hardly possible for most real objects because it is non-linear and ill posed problem. However, it appeared that the tactile image per se, P(x,y,z), closely reflects the information content of the elasticity image and reveals tissue or organ anatomy and elasticity structure. The tissue elasticity at specified location can be estimated on the basis of spatial gradients within P(x,y,z). Figure 1 presents an experiment on a composite tissue phantom examined by a tactile imaging probe illustrating the ability to visualize the structure of the object.