Circular spline fitting using an evolution process

We propose a new method to approximate a given set of ordered data points by a spatial circular spline curve. At first an initial circular spline curve is generated by biarc interpolation. Then an evolution process based on a least-squares approximation is applied to the curve. During the evolution process, the circular spline curve converges dynamically to a stable shape. Our method does not need any tangent information. During the evolution process, the number of arcs is automatically adapted to the data such that the final curve contains as few arc arcs as possible. We prove that the evolution process is equivalent to a Gauss-Newton-type method. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.