I'm playing with an algorithm which generates a sequence of integers as shown in the diagram. What I want to calculate is the polynomial (or other) curve fit to the upper boundary.
I know I can use a convex hull algo to select the boundary points, then reject all points along the bottom and right-hand margin, do some smoothing of the remainder, etc.
Alternatively, I could sample the dataset in order and extract only the values which set a new maximum as I progress. I'm pretty sure there are no "outlier" values that would grossly shift the curve with this approach.
So, my question really boils down to: is there any real advantage to going with the more time-consuming convex-hull approach?
