Algorithm to locate local maxima

Question

I have data that always looks something like this:

alt text http://michaelfogleman.com/static/images/chart.png

I need an algorithm to locate the three peaks.

Answer 1

You could try to fit a spline to the data and then find the extrema of the spline. Since the spline is piecewise polynomial, the exact locations of the extrema can be found with relatively simple formulas.