title: Using Hough Transform to find lines, but also need to track the points found on these lines
body: <p>This isn't really a 2D problem, but actually a simplification of a 3D problem.  So it's not a straight image analysis question.</p>
  
  <p>I have a set of 2D points that I will use to render a 3D surface map.  I could draw all of the points as vertices but this is wasteful as many of these points will form lines and other simple shapes that can be rendered much more easily.  I can use the Hough Transform with OpenCV to find these lines; however the OpenCV function doesn't tell me what points in my set would lie on these lines.  </p>
  
  <p>I need to know either the subset of points that <strong>don't</strong> lie on lines found in the Hough Transform, so I know to render them as vertices, or those that *<em>do</em> so I know not to render them.  </p>
  
  <p>In other words, it doesn't do any good to find simplified shapes if I can't somehow exclude the vertices I don't need to draw anymore.</p>
  
  <p>Another detail: The application is constantly adding new points that may or may not need to be rendered.  I figure I can re-run the Hough Transform on the full set of points as needed (once per rendering frame) but again this is inefficient since the image won't necessarily change that much.  Is there another way to approach the problem?</p>