A direction Change-based algorithm for polygonal approximation

A linear-time algorithm is proposed for polygonal approximation of digital curves. The direction changes of the x- and y-coordinates are traced to generate a new, compact representation of curves. The algorithm, Direction Change-based Polygonal Approximation (DCPA), has two advantages: linear time complexity and insensitivity to parameter setting. Benchmark results demonstrate the competitive performance of DCPA using standard assessment techniques.