Authors:
Sumanta Guha
;
Paul Janecek
and
Nguyen Duc Cong Song
Affiliation:
CSIM Program, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand
Keyword(s):
Curvature, curve simplification, Douglas-Peucker, level of detail, polygonal curve, polyline, simplification algorithm, SimpliPoly.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Computer Vision, Visualization and Computer Graphics
;
Geometry and Modeling
;
Modeling and Algorithms
;
Multi-Resolution Modeling
Abstract:
A curvature-based algorithm to simplify a polygonal curve is described, together with its implementation. The
so-called SimpliPoly algorithm uses Be´zier curves to approximate pieces of the input curve, and assign curvature estimates to vertices of the input polyline from curvature values computed for the Be´zier approximations. The implementation of SimpliPoly is interactive and available freely on-line. Empirical comparisons indicate that SimpliPoly performs as well as the widely-used Douglas-Peucker algorithm in most situations, and significantly better, because it is curvature-driven, in applications where it is necessary to preserve local features of the curve.