We consider simple digital curves in a 3D orthogonal grid as special polyhedrally bounded sets. These digital curves model digitized curves or arcs in three-dimensional euclidean space. The length of such a simple digital curve is defined to be the length of the minimum-length polygonal curve fully contained and complete in the tube of this digital curve. So far no algorithm was known for the calculation of such a shortest polygonal curve. The paper provides an iterative algorithmic solution, including a presentation of its foundations and of experimental results.
['Thomas Bülow', 'Reinhard Klette']
Rubber band algorithm for estimating the length of digitized space-curves