How to make a curve line straight?

Question

Just imagine that you have a curved line. How could you make it a straight line? Do you know any paper or algorithm that can help me out? I know that I one way of doing it is defining an energy function; but, I do not have any idea of what the criterion could be. My problem is not a simple curve, like a half circle. An example of the curve is attached. I do not think that projecting the points on the line on x- or y- axis would be a good option.

Thanks!

Please format and rewrite components of your question for readability. Then explain or show what you have tried so that we do not propose solutions similar to "your own". (if you have no "your own" then stackoverflow is not for you) — Thomas Andreè Wang, Feb 01 '16 at 06:56
There is no programming problem yet - you need to find mathematical solution first and if you have trouble implementing it - come back and update/clarify question. — Alexei Levenkov, Feb 01 '16 at 06:56
Thomas, in my opinion, stackoverflow is for anybody how needs help, and after thinking about his problem for a long period of time cannot come up with a solution. — Raimond, Feb 01 '16 at 07:05

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 01 '16 at 07:02

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Your question is not completely clear on what you are actually working with: if you are using an interpolation algorithm to connect a discrete number of points with a 'curved line', then something like the Ramer-Douglas-Peucker algorithm might be useful.

answered Feb 01 '16 at 07:02

apotry

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Thanks so much, apotry! – Raimond Feb 01 '16 at 08:14
@Raimond In case you are interested, I recently wrote an answer that implements the Peucker algorithm and shows a little animation http://stackoverflow.com/a/36937976/2836621 – Mark Setchell May 04 '16 at 14:21

How to make a curve line straight?

1 Answers1