G'day
I'm trying to program a smart way to find the closest grid points to the points along a contour.
The grid is a 2-dimensional grid, stored in x and y (which contain the x and y kilometre positions of the grid cells).
The contour is a line, made up of x and y locations, not necessarily regularly spaced.
This is shown below - the red dots are the grid, and the blue dots are the points on the contour. How do I find the indices of the red dot closest to each blue dot?
Edit - I should mention that the grid is a latitude/longitude grid, of an area fairly close to the south pole. So, the points (the red dots) are the position in metres from the south pole (using a polar stereographic representation). Since the grid is a geographic grid there is unequal grid spacing - with slightly different shaped cells (where the red dots define the vertices of the cells) due to the distortion at high latitudes.
The result is that I can't just find which row/column of the x and y matrix corresponds closest to the input point coordinates - unlike a regular grid from meshgrid, the values in the rows and columns vary...
Cheers
Dave
The usual method is to go:
for every blue point {
for every red point {
is this the closest so far
}
}
But a better way is to put the red data into a kd tree. This is a tree that splits the data along its mean, then splits the two data sets along their means etc until you have them separated into a tree structure.
This will change your searching effeciancy from O(n*m) to O(log(n)*m)
Here is a library:
http://www.mathworks.com.au/matlabcentral/fileexchange/4586-k-d-tree
This library will provide you the means to easily make a kd tree out of the data and to search for the closest point in it.
Alternatively you can use a quadtree, not as simple but the same idea. (you may have to write your own library for that)
Make sure the largest data set (in this case your red points) go into the tree as this will provide the greatest time reduction.
I think I've found a way to do it using the nearest flag of griddata.
I make a matrix that is the same size as the grid x and y matrices, but is filled with the linear indices of the corresponding matrix element. This is formed by reshaping a vector (which is 1:size(x,1)*size(x,2)) to the same dimensions as x.
I then use griddata and the nearest flag to find the linear index of the point closest to each point on my contour (blue dots). Then, simply converting back to subscript notation with ind2sub leaves me with a 2 row vectors describing the matrix subscripts for the points closest to each point on the blue-dotted contour.
This plot below shows the contour (blue dots), the grid (red dots) and the closest grid points (green dots).
This is the code snippet I used:
index_matrix1 = 1:size(x,1)*size(x,2);
index_matrix1 = reshape(index_matrix1,size(x));
lin_ind = griddata(x,y,index_matrix1,CX,CY,'nearest'); % where CX and CY are the coords of the contour
[sub_ind(1,:),sub_ind(2,:)] = ind2sub(size(x),lin_ind);
I suppose that in the stereographic representation, your points form a neat grid in r-theta coordinates. (I'm not too familiar with this, so correct me if I'm wrong. My suggestion may still apply).
For plotting you convert from the stereographic to latitude-longitude, which distorts the grid. However, for finding the nearest point, consider converting the latitude-longitude of the blue contour points into stereographic coordinates, where it is easy to determine the cell for each point using its r and theta values.
If you can index the cell in the stereographic representation, the index will be the same when you transform to another representation.
The main requirement is that under some transformation, the grid points are defined by two vectors, X and Y, so that for any x in X and y in Y, (x, y) is a grid point. Next transform both the grid and the contour points by that transformation. Then given an arbitrary point (x1, y1), we can find the appropriate grid cell by finding the closest x to x1 and the closest y to y1. Transform back to get the points in the desired coordinate system.
dsearchn: N-D nearest point search.
[k, d] = dsearchn(A,B) : returns the distances, d, to the closest points. d is a column vector of length p.
http://au.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/dsearchn.html?s_tid=gn_loc_drop
Related
I want to build a contourf plot of a certain aspect in my Plate. The plate is divided in triangle elements, which I have the coordinates (x,y) of each knot of the triangle.
So, How can I make a meshgrid for my knots so I can make my contourf plot?? I have the coordinates of everything and have the value of my function Z in each knot. (I'm a beginner in Matlab, sorry for this "basic" question)
If your goal is just to visualise the triangles then there is another way that's probably simpler and more robust (see the end of this post).
If you definitely need to generate contours then you will need to interpolate your triangular mesh over a grid. You can use the scatteredInterpolant class for this (documentation here). It takes the X and Y arguments or your triangular vertices (knots), as well as the Z values for each one and creates a 'function' that you can use to evaluate other points. Then you create a grid, interpolate your triangular mesh over the grid and you can use the results for the countour plot.
The inputs to the scatteredInterpolanthave to be linear column vectors, so you will probably need to reshape them using the(:)`notation.
So let's assume you have triangular data like this
X = [1 4; 8 9];
Y = [2 3; 4 5];
Z = [0.3 42; 16 8];
you would work out the upper and lower limits of your range first
xlimits = minmax(X(:));
ylimits = minmax(Y(:));
where the (:) notation serves to line up all the elements of X in a single column.
Then you can create a meshgrid that spans that range. You need to decide how fine that grid should be.
spacing = 1;
xqlinear = xlimits(1):spacing:xlimits(2);
yqlinear = ylimits(1):spacing:ylimits(2);
where linspace makes a vector of values starting at the first one (xlimits(1)) and ending at the third one (xlimits(2)) and separated by spacing. Experiment with this and look at the results, you'll see how it works.
These two vectors specify the grid positions in each dimension. To make an actual meshgrid-style grid you then call meshgrid on them
[XQ, YQ] = meshgrid(xqlinear, yqlinear);
this will produce two matrices of points. XQ holds the x-coordinates of every points in the grid, arranged in the same grid. YQ holds the y-coordinates. The two need to go together. Again experiment with this and look at the results, you'll see how it works.
Then you can put them all together into the interpolation:
F = scatteredInterpolant(X(:), Y(:), Z(:));
ZQ = F(XQ, YQ);
to get the interpolated values ZQ at each of your grid points. You can then send those data to contourf
contourf(XQ, YQ, ZQ);
If the contour is too blocky you will probably need to make the spacing value smaller, which will create more points in your interpolant. If you have lots of data this might cause memory issues, so be aware of that.
If your goal is just to view the triangular mesh then you might find trimesh does what you want or, depending on how your data is already represented, scatter. These will both produce 3D plots with wireframes or point clouds though so if you need contours the interpolation is the way to go.
So i have this code to obtain radial gravity on Earth in function of the latitude:
G=6.6e-11;
M=5.976e24;
N=1000;
r=6371000;
w=2*pi/(24*3600);
for i=1:1:360
Theta=i*pi/180;
x(i)=i;
Vi(i)=-G*M/(r*r);
Phii(i)=r*w*w*sin(Theta)*sin(Theta);
gr(i)=Vi(i)+Phii(i);
end
plot(x,gr)
And it runs well. I want to make a graph of a circle made of a border of points (representing angle (i)) that change colour according to the value of gr(I want to set ranges of values of gr so that if the value obtained falls in a specific category, the point will have a specific colour).
I'm really new to MATLAB. Is there any possible way to make this?
Thanks in advance.
Here is the basic algorithm that I would do:
Determine how many colours you want to represent in your plot.
Create a colour map that has this many points for what you want to compute.
Determine a linearly increasing vector that varies from the minimum value of gr to the maximum value of gr with as many points as you have determined in Step #2
For each point in gr:
a. Determine which point yields the closest distance of this point to the vector in Step #3
b. Use this to index which colour you want.
c. Convert your angle into Cartesian co-ordinates, then plot this point with the colour found in Step 4b.
Let's tackle each point in detail.
Step #1 - Determine how many colours you want
This is pretty simple. Just determine how many colours you want. For now, let's assume that you want 20 colours, so:
num_colours = 20;
Step #2 - Create a colour map
What we can do is create a 20 x 3 matrix where each row determines a RGB tuple that denotes the amount of red, green and blue that each colour will occupy. MATLAB has built-in colour maps that will help you facilitate this. Here are all of the available colour maps that MATLAB has:
Each colour map has a special variable where you can provide it an integer number, and it'll return this 2D matrix of as many rows as the number you have provided. Each row gives you an RGB triplet which denotes the proportion of red, green and blue respectively. This matrix varies from the beginning of the colour map (top row) to the end (bottom row). All you have to do is use any name seen in the figure I've shown you above to create a colour map of that type. For example, if you wanted to get a bones colour map of 15 points, simply do:
colour_map = bones(15);
If you wanted to get a jet colour map of 25 points, simply do:
colour_map = jet(25);
.... you get the idea right? I like hsv so let's use the HSV colour map. You can use any colour map you want, but let's just stick with HSV for the sake of this example.
As such:
colour_map = hsv(num_colours);
Step #3 - Get that linearly increasing vector
You want certain colours to map into certain ranges, which is why this step is important. Given a value in gr, we want to figure out which colour we want to choose, and all you have to do is determine which value in gr is the closest to a value in this vector in Step #3. Therefore, you can use linspace to do this for you:
bin_vector = linspace(min(gr), max(gr), num_colours);
This will create a num_colours 1D array where the beginning of this array starts at the minimum value of gr and varies up to the maximum value of gr and each value is equally spaced such that we generate a num_colours array.
Step #4 - Bring it all home
Now, for each point in gr, we need to figure out which point is the closest to that vector in Step #3, we then use this to figure out the colour we want, then we need to convert our angle into Cartesian co-ordinates, then plot this point.
For illustration purposes, I'm going to assume your radius is 1. You can figure out how to get the x and y co-ordinates by simply doing cos(theta) and sin(theta), where theta is the angle you are examining. Since your gr array has 360 slots, I'm going to assume a resolution of 1 degree per slot. Therefore, you can easily do this in a for loop. Make sure you use hold on because we are going to call plot multiple times, and we don't want to overwrite the plot each time we call plot. You want all of the points to stay in the plot.
Without further ado:
figure; %// Create blank figure
hold on; %// Remember all points
%// For each point in our array...
for idx = 1 : 360
%// Find the closest slot between gr and our vector in Step #3
[~,min_idx] = min(abs(gr(idx) - bin_vector));
%// Grab this colour
clr = colour_map(min_idx,:);
%// Plot the point with this colour
plot(cosd(idx), sind(idx), '.', 'Color', clr, 'MarkerSize', 10);
end
Take notice that cosd and sind take in degrees as the input argument while cos and sin take in radians. Also, take note that I also changed the size of the point so that it's bigger. With the above logic, and your array in gr, this is what I get:
If you want the radius to get larger, all you have to do is multiply each cosd and sind term with your radius. Therefore, you can do something like this:
radius = 2;
for idx = 1 : 360
... %// Insert colour code here
...
...
%// Now plot
plot(radius*cosd(idx), radius*sind(idx), '.', 'Color', clr, 'MarkerSize', 10);
end
Just leave the code the same, but for the plot command, just multiply each x and y value by the radius.
Minor note in efficiency
The way you're calculating your gr array is using an inefficient for loop. There are some situations (like mine above) where you need to use a for loop, but for simple computations there is no need. It's better if you vectorize its creation. Therefore, you can get rid of the for loop to calculate your gr array like so:
x = 1 : 360;
Theta = x*pi/180;
Phii = r*w*w*sin(Theta).*sin(Theta);
Vi = -G*M/(r*r);
gr = Vi + Phii;
x is simply a vector going from 1 to 360, and that's done in the first line. Also, Vi is just an array which contains a single value and if you know how operations work between a scalar and an array, you can just do an addition with this single value and it'll add every value in your array by this much. As such, there's no need to create an array for Vi. Also, take a look at how I calculated Phii. I'm using element-by-element operations as Theta is now an array. You want to create an array Phii that takes corresponding values of Theta, and applies that formula to each value in Theta to produce Phii.
Hope this helps. Good luck!
I have a set of triangles in the standard format used in matlab, i.e a 3XN list of indinces, and two vectors of length N, called X and Y for the x and y coordinates.
I have a scalar value associated with each triangle, in a vector C. I want to draw filled triangles where the color of each tri is determined by the vector C. I know I can use patch, but that would mean I need to iterate over all tris and call patch for each one, right?
Is there a better way?
Actually if you check the documentation for patch you'll notice it says
Create one or more filled polygons.
It also says
If X and Y are m-by-n matrices, MATLAB draws n polygons with m vertices.
C determines the color of the patch.
patch may actually be exactly what you want. You just need to put the x and y coordinates into 3xN matrices.
I have a set of lines that define a W shape. On each line I have then defined a set of M points that separated by a fixed width. Now I'd like to calculate the MxM matrix of distances where the value of (i,j) contains the along-the-path-distance between the points i and j.
Here is an of the along-the-path-distance between two points.
How can I calculate this distance in Matlab?
It mostly comes down to whether a simple algorithm that only works for this sort of shape is sufficient or if you'll need to also find the distance with different complex paths. If it's just this shape then it's rather trivial
Here the yHoriz is the y value of the horizontal line that connects the vertical lines and x and y I and J are the x and y values of the points i and j.
distance= abs(yI - yHoriz) + abs(xJ-xI) + abs(yJ - yHoriz)
You would need to check if the the points are on the same vertical line and just find the difference in their y values instead of the above value if they are on the same line.
If I explain why, this might make more sense
I have a logical matrix (103x3488) output of a photo of a measuring staff having been run through edge detect (1=edge, 0=noedge). Aim- to calculate the distance in pixels between the graduations on the staff. Problem, staff sags in the middle.
Idea: User inputs co-ordinates (using ginput or something) of each end of staff and the midpoint of the sag, then if the edges between these points can be extracted into arrays I can easily find the locations of the edges.
Any way of extracting an array from a matrix in this manner?
Also open to other ideas, only been using matlab for a month, so most functions are unknown to me.
edit:
Link to image
It shows a small area of the matrix, so in this example 1 and 2 are the points I want to sample between, and I'd want to return the points that occur along the red line.
Cheers
Try this
dat=imread('83zlP.png');
figure(1)
pcolor(double(dat))
shading flat
axis equal
% get the line ends
gi=floor(ginput(2))
x=gi(:,1);
y=gi(:,2);
xl=min(x):max(x); % line pixel x coords
yl=floor(interp1(x,y,xl)); % line pixel y coords
pdat=nan(length(xl),1);
for i=1:length(xl)
pdat(i)=dat(yl(i),xl(i));
end
figure(2)
plot(1:length(xl),pdat)
peaks=find(pdat>40); % threshhold for peak detection
bigpeak=peaks(diff(peaks)>10); % threshold for selecting only edge of peak
hold all
plot(xl(bigpeak),pdat(bigpeak),'x')
meanspacex=mean(diff(xl(bigpeak)));
meanspacey=mean(diff(yl(bigpeak)));
meanspace=sqrt(meanspacex^2+meanspacey^2);
The matrix pdat gives the pixels along the line you have selected. The meanspace is edge spacing in pixel units. The thresholds might need fiddling with, depending on the image.
After seeing the image, I'm not sure where the "sagging" you're referring to is taking place. The image is rotated, but you can fix that using imrotate. The degree to which it needs to be rotated should be easy enough; just input the coordinates A and B and use the inverse tangent to find the angle offset from 0 degrees.
Regarding the points, once it's aligned straight, all you need to do is specify a row in the image matrix (it would be a 1 x 3448 vector) and use find to get non-zero vector indexes. As the rotate function may have interpolated the pixels somewhat, you may get more than one index per "line", but they'll be identifiable as being consecutive numbers, and you can just average them to get an approximate value.