On the consistency of procrustean mean shapes

Abstract

We discuss the uniqueness of the Fréchet mean of a class of distributions on the shape space of k labelled points in ℝ2, the supports of which could be the entire space. From this it follows that the shape of the means is the unique Fréchet mean shape of the induced distribution with respect to an appropriate metric structure, provided the distribution of k labelled points in ℝ2 is isotropic and satisfies a further mild condition. This result implies that an increasing sequence of procrustean mean shapes defined in either of the two ways used in practice will tend almost surely to the shape of the means.