A Modified Fourier Descriptor for Shape Matching in MARS

We propose a Modified Fourier Descriptor and a new distance measure for describing and comparing closed planar curves. Our method accounts for spatial discretization of shapes, an issue seldom mentioned, much less addressed in the literature.

The motivating application is shape matching in the Multimedia Analysis and Retrieval System (MARS), our content-based image retrieval system. The application requires a compact and reliable representation of object boundaries in the image database, and a similarity measure that can be computed in real time. We test our shape matching method on a set of Roman characters. Results indicate that our method is a feasible solution for real time shape comparison.