Re: Distance from point to set
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg55314] Re: Distance from point to set
- From: Peter Pein <petsie at arcor.de>
- Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 04:45:15 -0500 (EST)
- References: <d1eblq$ek7$1@smc.vnet.net>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Piotr Kowalski wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I would like to compute distance d(x,A) from a point 'x' to a set 'A',
> (all in R^n, where n=2 or n=3) that is:
>
> d(x,A) = min ||x - a|| (forall a in A)
> where: n=2 or n=3,
> x is point in R^n, A is subset of R^n
> || || is norm (euclidean, max, etc).
>
> Can I find Mathematica function or package for such problem ?
>
> Thank you in advance,
> P. Kowalski
>
Hello Piotr,
Mathematica has got a builtin Norm[]:
In[1]:= (* genrating testing data *)
x = {1, 2, 3}; A = Table[Random[Integer, {-5, 10}], {5}, {3}]
Out[1]=
{{-5, -3, 8}, {4, -1, 2}, {-5, -4, 6}, {-5, 10, 10}, {-3, 10, 5}}
In[2]:= (* definition of the distance *)
d[el_, set_, p_:Infinity] := Min[(Norm[el - #1, p] & ) /@ set]
(* you can use 2 in place of Infinity to get euclidian norm as default *)
In[3]:= d[x, A]
Out[3]= 3
In[4]:= (* the same function works for R^2*)
d[{1, 1}, {{-1, 1}, {2, 2}, {2, 1}}, 2]
Out[4]= 1
--
Peter Pein
Berlin