CHARACTERIZING PLANAR OUTLINES

Finding the most outstanding perceptual point set on a planar closed outline is the first step in the shape characterization of such curves. In this paper we present an approach to this problem from the joint information provided by a set of outstanding points and an interpolation procedure defining the shape between them. The two main features of the paper are the optimization criterion for determining the class of outstanding points and the spline making the interpolation. The algorithm firstly calculates the graph of curvature and determines the local extremes on it, secondly it identifies the landmark points according to a criterion of importance and thirdly it calculates the interpolated curve from the landmark points and measures the fitting error from the interpolated curve to the observed outline.