Feature describing the shape of spatially distributed data set

A computer-implemented method for determining a skeleton of point cloud data in an automotive system for monitoring the environment of a vehicle, the skeleton comprising a plurality of central points and being indicative of the shape of the point cloud data, the point cloud data being generated by one or more sensors of the vehicle with respect to a reference coordinate system, the point cloud data defining a connected subspace of the reference coordinate system, the method comprising the steps:

• a) determining (S10) a bounding box of the point cloud data;
• b) selecting (S20) a plurality of starting agent positions of an agent within the bounding box;
• c) selecting (S30) a plurality of coordinate systems relative to the bounding box;
• d) performing (S40), for one of the selected plurality of starting agent positions and one of the selected plurality of coordinate systems, a plurality of agent moving operations, wherein each agent moving operation comprises moving the agent from the current agent position to a new agent position parallel to a coordinate axis of the selected coordinate system, wherein the new agent position is determined based on an intersecting line through the current agent position parallel to the coordinate axis;
• e) determining (S50), after step d) is completed, the new agent position as a central point included in the skeleton of the point cloud data;
• and
• f) repeating (S60) steps d) and e) for each combination of the plurality of staring starting agent positions and the plurality of coordinate systems, thereby determining a plurality of central points included in the skeleton of the point cloud data.