The equipartition of curves (Q924088)

A curve equipartition problem is discussed. The curve equipartition problem consists in the partitioning of a continuous curve into any number of consecutive pieces with equal chord length. A new geometric proof that the equipartition problem has at least one solution for every injective continuous curve and for any number of curve parts is given. The presented approach is based on the analysis of the connected components of the zero level set of a certain function using combinatorial and algebraic topology methods. A new approximate algorithm is implemented for solving the equipartition problem and the experimental results are described. The presented solution of the curve equipartition problem can be used in many applications in computational geometry -- curve segmentation, polygonal approximation, pattern and shape recognition, etc.