Hierarchical curve reconstruction. Part I: Bifurcation analysis and recovery of smooth curves

Conventional edge linking methods perform poorly when multiple responses to the same edge, bifurcations and nearby edges are present. We propose a scheme for curve inference where divergent bifurcations are initially suppressed so that the smooth parts of the curves can be computed more reliably. Recovery of curve singularities and gaps is deferred to a later stage, when more contextual information is available.