Shape recognition of flexible cables by Outer Edge FCM clustering

A novel scheme for construction and representation of a single compound cable is presented. The complicated geometry of those objects put on natural posture is analysed and represented based on a modified clustering method: Outer Edge FCM. In the modification, the membership functions can be extended by introducing three evaluation functions for distance, angle, and reach, respectively. We introduce PCA to obtain rough change of shapes and to recognize thickness of cables in each segment. We propose Outer Edge FCM clustering to recognize complex shapes of outer parts of the objects. Then, we confirmed the availability of the proposed method by the experimental results of geometric representation of segment center vectors and vectors of outer edge.