  Given a real valued function f(X,Y), a box region B_0 in R^2 and a positive
epsilon, we want to compute an epsilon-isotopic polygonal approximation to the
restriction of the curve S=f^{-1}(0)={p in R^2: f(p)=0} to B_0. We focus on
subdivision algorithms because of their adaptive complexity and ease of
implementation. Plantinga and Vegter gave a numerical subdivision algorithm
that is exact when the curve S is bounded and non-singular. They used a
computational model that relied only on function evaluation and interval
arithmetic. We generalize their algorithm to any bounded (but possibly
non-simply connected) region that does not contain singularities of S. With
this generalization as a subroutine, we provide a method to detect isolated
algebraic singularities and their branching degree. This appears to be the
first complete purely numerical method to compute isotopic approximations of
algebraic curves with isolated singularities.
