See Jens Gravesen: “Adaptive subdivision and the length of Bezier curves”
mat-report no. 1992-10, Mathematical Institute, The Technical
University of Denmark, or in “Graphics Gems V” (Editor Alan Paeth).
Sample Code
The demo project shows a rotating gradient filled ellipse with a dotted outline.
For clarity and so that you might see how fast or slow typically complex operations can be,
the drawing code has not been carefully optimized.