Example

The images below represent two attempts to find a "good" fit of a path curve to the Romanian Walnut bud, on the basis of the profile-tracking indicated by the blue lines on or very near the bud's edges. Each shows a good fit (by the yellow trace, put there by purely mathematical methods, and by the low MRD), but the "gestures" differ markedly; one is "sharp-end-up", the other is "sharp-end-down". One may wonder which of them is the more representative. I incline to the right hand one, as the yellow trace on the left image diverges seriously from the actual profile near the bottom of the bud.

The images below represent two attempts to find a "good" fit of a path curve to the Romanian Walnut bud, on the basis of the profile-tracking indicated by the blue lines on or very near the bud's edges. Each shows a good fit (by the yellow trace, put there by purely mathematical methods, and by the low MRD), but the "gestures" differ markedly; one is "sharp-end-up", the other is "sharp-end-down". One may wonder which of them is the more representative. I incline to the right hand one, as the yellow trace on the left image diverges seriously from the actual profile near the bottom of the bud.

It will be noticed that the image on the right has had some "image surgery"; the flanking bud has been excised, and the hairs, or "down", on the left side have been removed. Such operations are always dangerous, but leaving them undone sometimes yields silly results. It's a Catch 22 situation, requiring judgment. It is, for example, arguable that the left image would have benefited from similar surgery, as the hairs on the left profile have definitely interfered with the profile-tracking there.