Peeling the longest: A simple generalized curve reconstruction algorithm

Abstract

Given a planar point set sampled from a curve, the curve reconstruction problem computes a polygonal approximation of the curve. In this paper, we propose a Delaunay triangulation-based algorithm for curve reconstruction, which removes the longest edge of each triangle to result in a graph. Further, each vertex of the graph is checked for a degree constraint to compute simple closed/open curves. Assuming ϵ-sampling, we provide theoretical guarantee which ensures that a simple closed/open curve is a piecewise linear approximation of the original curve. Input point sets with outliers are handled as part of the algorithm, without pre-processing. We also propose strategies to identify the presence of noise and simplify a noisy point set, identify self-intersections and enhance our algorithm to reconstruct such point sets. Perhaps, this is the first algorithm to identify the presence of noise in a point set. Our algorithm is able to detect closed/open curves, disconnected components, multiple holes and sharp corners. The algorithm is simple to implement, independent of the type of input, non-feature specific and hence it is a generalized one. We have performed extensive comparative studies to demonstrate that our method is comparable or better than other existing methods. Limitations of our approach have also been discussed.