Abstract: To solve the problem of contour noise and deformation in shape matching, a new shape matching algorithm combining N-DCE, SC and DP for retrieval accuracy and computational efficiency, is proposed based on discrete curve evolution（DCE）. This algorithm includes 3 steps: the object contour evolved adaptively by N-DCE and contour information including important visual parts extracted; the costing feature descriptor computed by Shape Contexts; shape distance similarity measured by DP algorithm based on SC costing descriptor. The experimental results of MPEG-7, Kimia and Swedish Leaf shape database indicate that this algorithm is robust to the contour deformation, and the computational efficiency and the retrieval accuracy are all essentially improved. It is worth mentioning that the modified discrete curve evolution algorithm can be fused with different shape descriptors to form a new shape matching algorithm.