On the importance of similarity characteristics of curve clustering and its applications

•Literature of curve clustering is classified by similarity characteristics.•A new nomenclature is suggested in hope of easing the understanding of practitioners.•Good perspective of curve clustering problem by focusing on similarity characteristic.•Better insight on which method to use depending on the similarity characteristics. This paper presents an overview of curve clustering from the similarity characteristics perspective, with a goal of providing useful advice and references regarding fundamental concepts that are accessible to the broad community of curve clustering practitioners. We introduce a new taxonomy of curve clustering by proposing four major similarity characteristics. We reviewed some contributions to curve clustering with respect to their similarity characteristics along with their applications. Lastly, we give an in-depth discussion of the overall challenges in this field with respect to similarity characteristics, highlight open research questions and discuss guidelines for further progress.