A curve tracing algorithm using level set based affine transform

Extracting centrelines from an unordered data set is an important problem in image processing and pattern recognition. The key strategy of existing methods is to find a curve placed at the middle of the data points. However, if the data set contains noise, these algorithms will converge to a local minimum. In this paper, we propose a new technique, which combines the level set and affine transform methods. In this approach, the user-defined initial curve is driven towards the object data. Experimental results show that the proposed method can enhance the performance of a class of curve extraction algorithms effectively. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.