A method for identifying shape features of local nature on the shape?s boundary, in a way that is facilitated by the presence of noise is presented. The boundary is seen as a real function. A study of a certain distance function reveals, almost counter-intuitively, that vertices can be defined and localized better in the presence of noise. The method works on both smooth and noisy shapes, the presence of noise having an effect of improving on the results of the smoothed version. Experiments with noise and a comparison to state of the art validate the method.