IDENTIFYING CURVES WITHIN A SCANNED IMAGE

A method is provided for identifying and locating curves within a digitized image. Digitized images are comprised of points which may represent curves stored as an array of binary coded elements in an memory device. Each addressable memory location in the array represents a single point or pixel. Particular curves within a scanned image are identified by randomly selecting a minimal subset of points which are necessary to generate a general equation for that curve; the equation along with a point on the curve is then used as in input parameter to an incremental curve generation routine which incrementally generates all points which are in a path along that curve. A comparison is made with scanned data to determine how many points exist along the path. This is repeatedly done until the curve with the greatest number of points is located.