Abstract

This work explores the Functional PCA in a complex framework through the study of a collection of otolith outlines considered as simple planar curves. A landmark-free functional method is proposed for shape registration of the contour lines. Then, the study of their variability is handled with functional PCA. Some graphical tools are proposed to display the results of the FPCA in this particular complex setting. Results show that the proposed method is efficient in case where shapes are close and is a good alternative to more complex shape analysis when dealing with functional data.