Creating a 2d mesh for "puppet" effect

Hi there,

There is a feature in After Effects that I’d like to reproduce in Blender.

The AE tool is called Puppet Pin. It automatically generates a 2d tessellated mesh based on the alpha channel of a texture. This mesh is then used for 2d deformations/warping.

I imported a reference image to Blender and modelled this shape by extruding and adding loops where necessary. I’d like to explore options of automatically generating the boundaries of the shape while keeping the geometry to the bare minimum.

Thanks for any suggestions.

cheers,
Laurence.