Convert point cloud to voxels via averaging - matlab

Question

I have the following data:
N = 10^3;
x = randn(N,1);
y = randn(N,1);
z = randn(N,1);
f = x.^2+y.^2+z.^2;
Now I want to split this continuous 3D space into nB bins.
nB = 20;
[~,~,x_bins] = histcounts(x,nB);
[~,~,y_bins] = histcounts(y,nB);
[~,~,z_bins] = histcounts(z,nB);
And put in each cube average f or nan if no observations happen in the cube:
F = nan(50,50,50);
for iX = 1:20
for iY = 1:20
for iZ = 1:20
idx = (x_bins==iX)&(y_bins==iY)&(z_bins==iZ);
F(iX,iY,iZ) = mean(f(idx));
end
end
end
isosurface(F,0.5)
This code does what I want. My problem is the speed. This code is extremely slow when N > 10^5 and nB = 100.
How can I speed up this code?
I also tried the accumarray() function:
subs=([x_bins,y_bins,z_bins]);
F2 = accumarray(subs,f,[],#mean);
all(F(:) == F2(:)) % false
However, this code produces a different result.

Answer 1

The problem with the code in the OP is that it tests all elements of the data for each element in the output array. The output array has nB^3 elements, the data has N elements, so the algorithm is O(N*nB^3). Instead, one can loop over the N elements of the input, and set the corresponding element in the output array, which is an operation O(N) (2nd code block below).
The accumarray solution in the OP needs to use the fillvals parameter, set it to NaN (3rd code block below).
To compare the results, one needs to explicitly test that both arrays have NaN in the same locations, and have equal non-NaN values elsewhere:
all( ( isnan(F(:)) & isnan(F2(:)) ) | ( F(:) == F2(:) ) )
% \-------same NaN values------/ \--same values--/
Here is code. All three versions produce identical results. Timings in Octave 4.4.1 (no JIT), in MATLAB the loop code should be faster. (Using input data from OP, with N=10^3 and nB=20).
%% OP's code, O(N*nB^3)
tic
F = nan(nB,nB,nB);
for iX = 1:nB
for iY = 1:nB
for iZ = 1:nB
idx = (x_bins==iX)&(y_bins==iY)&(z_bins==iZ);
F(iX,iY,iZ) = mean(f(idx));
end
end
end
toc
% Elapsed time is 1.61736 seconds.
%% Looping over input, O(N)
tic
s = zeros(nB,nB,nB);
c = zeros(nB,nB,nB);
ind = sub2ind([nB,nB,nB],x_bins,y_bins,z_bins);
for ii=1:N
s(ind(ii)) = s(ind(ii)) + f(ii);
c(ind(ii)) = c(ind(ii)) + 1;
end
F2 = s ./ c;
toc
% Elapsed time is 0.0606539 seconds.
%% Other alternative, using accumarray
tic
ind = sub2ind([nB,nB,nB],x_bins,y_bins,z_bins);
F3 = accumarray(ind,f,[nB,nB,nB],#mean,NaN);
toc
% Elapsed time is 0.14113 seconds.