<title>Perceptual convexity</title>

Abstract

Often objects which are not convex in the mathematical sense are treated as `perceptually convex'. We present an algorithm for recognition of the perceptual convexity of a 2D contour. We start by reducing the notion of `a contour is perceptually convex' to the notion of `a contour is Y-convex'. The latter reflects an absence of large concavities in the OY direction of an XOY frame. Then we represented a contour by a G-graph and modify the slowest descent-- the small leaf trimming procedure recently introduced for the estimation of shape similarity. We prove that executing the slowest descent dow to a G-graph consisting of 3 vertices allows us to detect large concavities in the OY direction. This allows us to recognize the perceptual convexity of an input contour.