Projective-invariant description of a meandering river

Abstract

How can the projective invariant of the cubic curve approximating the river bed near its meander be calculated? A well-known approach uses the Weierstrass normal form. However, it is important to find this form by means of calculations tolerant to curve representation errors and, in particular, using calculations that do not require computation of tangent lines or inflection points. A new algorithm is proposed for calculation of the projective invariant of the cubic curve. This algorithm can be used to describe river meanders.