2.4. Data reduction
Many of the x and y coordinates on the contour are redundant and do not really describe the overall shape of the oyster. Often, they are even considered edge noise or distracters. It is desirable to filter out these redundant data points before shape analysis is performed. In order to use the contour to describe the overall shape, it is also necessary to reduce the number of data points on the contour to a reasonable number that can be evaluated using shape similarity measurement.