Abstract: We present a novel approach for representing and evolving deformable active contours by restricting the movement of the contour vertices to the grid lines of a uniform lattice. This restriction implicitly controls the (re)parameterization of the contour and hence makes it possible to employ parameterization-independent evolution rules. Moreover, the underlying uniform grid makes self-collision detection very efficient. Our contour model is also able to perform topology changes, but - more importantly - it can detect and handle self-collisions at subpixel precision. In applications where topology changes are not appropriate, we generate contours that touch themselves without any gaps or self-intersections.