Enhancement of Planar Shape Through Optimization of Functionals for Curves

We show how optimization of the Nordstrom and Mumford-Shah functionals can be used to develop a type of curve-evolution that is able to preserve salient features of closed curves while simultaneously suppressing noise and irrelevant details. The idea is to characterize a curve by means of its angle-function and apply the appropriate dynamics to this representation. Upon convergence, the resulting form of the contour is reconstructed from the representation. >