Shoreline approximation for unstructured mesh generation

A new method for approximating shorelines (polygons and polylines) is presented. The algorithm differs from the commonly used Douglas–Peucker type algorithms as the method can approximate to some feature error given the constraint that edge-lengths must satisfy some minimum-edge-length criteria. This constraint is necessary for the shoreline approximation to be useful for unstructured mesh generation for ocean modelling. In addition the method applies local optimisations to iteratively improve the shoreline approximation. Applications of the method are presented.