Bezier curve-based generic shape encoder

Abstract

Existing Bezier curve-based shape description techniques primarily focus upon determining a set of pertinent control points (CP) to represent a particular shape contour. While many different approaches have been proposed, none adequately consider domain-specific information about the shape contour like its gradualness and sharpness, in the CP generation process which can potentially result in large distortions in the object's shape representation. This study introduces a novel Bezier curve-based generic shape encoder (BCGSE) that partitions an object contour into contiguous segments based upon its cornerity, before generating the CP for each segment using relevant shape curvature information. In addition, although CP encoding has generally been ignored, BCGSE embeds an efficient vertex-based encoding strategy exploiting the latent equidistance between consecutive CP. A non-linear optimisation technique is also presented to enable the encoder is automatically adapt to bit-rate constraints. The performance of the BCGSE framework has been rigorously tested on a variety of diverse arbitrary shapes from both a distortion and requisite bit-rate perspective, with qualitative and quantitative results corroborating its superiority over existing shape descriptors.