An application of the c-varieties clustering algorithms to polygonal curve fitting

An algorithm is described that fits boundary data of planar shapes in either rectangular coordinate or chain-code format with a set of straight line segments. The algorithm combines a new vertex detection method, which locates initial vertices and segments in the data, with the c-elliptotype clustering algorithm, which iteratively adjusts the location of these initial segments, thereby obtaining a best polygonal fit for the data in the mean-squared error sense. Several numerical examples are given to exemplify the implementation and utility of this new approach.