Dominant point detection by reverse polygonization of digital curves

A polygonal approximation technique using reverse polygonization is presented in this paper. The reverse polygonization starts from an initial set of dominant points i.e. break points. In that, dominant points are deleted (one in each iteration) such that the maximal perpendicular distance of approximating straight line from original curve is minimal. A comparative study with some commonly referred algorithms is also presented, which shows that this technique can produce better approximation results. The algorithm has additional advantages like simplicity, polygonal approximation with any number of dominant points and up to any error value, and computational efficiency.