Let's say you have a two dimensional plane with 2 points (called a and b) on it represented by an x integer and a y integer for each point.
How can you determine if another point c is on the line segment defined by a and b?
I use python most, but examples in any language would be helpful.
Check if the cross product of (b-a) and (c-a) is 0. Ah, wait, you say you want to know if it's on the line segment, not the same line. That's a little more work and I don't have time to answer; I'll delete this partial answer after someone fills in a proper one.
Update: Two more notes: first, Brian Hayes's chapter in Beautiful Code covers the design space for a collinearity-test function -- useful background. Second, [points that have since been answered].
Update 2: I like vincent's approach best now (and I'm embarrassed I didn't see it). But the comparison could still be done in a cleaner way, I think, like this:
def is_on(a, b, c):
"Return true iff point c intersects the line segment from a to b."
# (or the degenerate case that all 3 points are coincident)
return (collinear(a, b, c)
and (within(a.x, c.x, b.x) if a.x != b.x else
within(a.y, c.y, b.y)))
def collinear(a, b, c):
"Return true iff a, b, and c all lie on the same line."
return (b.x - a.x) * (c.y - a.y) == (c.x - a.x) * (b.y - a.y)
def within(p, q, r):
"Return true iff q is between p and r (inclusive)."
return p <= q <= r or r <= q <= p
Update 3: Brian Hayes pointed out that you only need to range-check one coordinate, once you know the points are collinear. (Previously my code had "and" instead of "if a.x != b.x".)
Check if the cross product of (b-a) and (c-a) is 0, as tells Darius Bacon, tells you if the points a, b and c are aligned.
But, as you want to know if c is between a and b, you also have to check that the dot product of (b-a) and (c-a) is positive and is less than the square of the distance between a and b.
In non-optimized pseudocode:
def isBetween(a, b, c):
crossproduct = (c.y - a.y) * (b.x - a.x) - (c.x - a.x) * (b.y - a.y)
if abs(crossproduct) > epsilon : return False # (or != 0 if using integers)
dotproduct = (c.x - a.x) * (b.x - a.x) + (c.y - a.y)*(b.y - a.y);
if dotproduct < 0 : return False
squaredlengthba = (b.x - a.x)*(b.x - a.x) + (b.y - a.y)*(b.y - a.y) )
if dotproduct > squaredlengthba: return False
return True
The scalar product between (c-a) and (b-a) must be equal to the product of their lengths (this means that the vectors (c-a) and (b-a) are aligned and with the same direction). Moreover, the length of (c-a) must be less than or equal to that of (b-a). Pseudocode:
# epsilon = small constant
def isBetween(a, b, c):
lengthca2 = (c.x - a.x)*(c.x - a.x) + (c.y - a.y)*(c.y - a.y)
lengthba2 = (b.x - a.x)*(b.x - a.x) + (b.y - a.y)*(b.y - a.y)
if lengthca2 > lengthba2: return False
dotproduct = (c.x - a.x)*(b.x - a.x) + (c.y - a.y)*(b.y - a.y)
if dotproduct < 0.0: return False
if abs(dotproduct*dotproduct - lengthca2*lengthba2) > epsilon: return False
return True
Here's another approach:
Point C (x3,y3) will lie between A & B if:
Using a more geometric approach, calculate the following distances:
ab = sqrt((a.x-b.x)**2 + (a.y-b.y)**2)
ac = sqrt((a.x-c.x)**2 + (a.y-c.y)**2)
bc = sqrt((b.x-c.x)**2 + (b.y-c.y)**2)
and test whether ac+bc equals ab:
is_on_segment = abs(ac + bc - ab) < EPSILON
That's because there are three possibilities:
Here's how I'd do it:
def distance(a,b):
return sqrt((a.x - b.x)**2 + (a.y - b.y)**2)
def is_between(a,c,b):
return distance(a,c) + distance(c,b) == distance(a,b)
Here's how I did it at school. I forgot why it is not a good idea.
EDIT:
@Darius Bacon: cites a "Beautiful Code" book which contains an explanation why the belowed code is not a good idea.
#!/usr/bin/env python
from __future__ import division
epsilon = 1e-6
class Point:
def __init__(self, x, y):
self.x, self.y = x, y
class LineSegment:
"""
>>> ls = LineSegment(Point(0,0), Point(2,4))
>>> Point(1, 2) in ls
True
>>> Point(.5, 1) in ls
True
>>> Point(.5, 1.1) in ls
False
>>> Point(-1, -2) in ls
False
>>> Point(.1, 0.20000001) in ls
True
>>> Point(.1, 0.2001) in ls
False
>>> ls = LineSegment(Point(1, 1), Point(3, 5))
>>> Point(2, 3) in ls
True
>>> Point(1.5, 2) in ls
True
>>> Point(0, -1) in ls
False
>>> ls = LineSegment(Point(1, 2), Point(1, 10))
>>> Point(1, 6) in ls
True
>>> Point(1, 1) in ls
False
>>> Point(2, 6) in ls
False
>>> ls = LineSegment(Point(-1, 10), Point(5, 10))
>>> Point(3, 10) in ls
True
>>> Point(6, 10) in ls
False
>>> Point(5, 10) in ls
True
>>> Point(3, 11) in ls
False
"""
def __init__(self, a, b):
if a.x > b.x:
a, b = b, a
(self.x0, self.y0, self.x1, self.y1) = (a.x, a.y, b.x, b.y)
self.slope = (self.y1 - self.y0) / (self.x1 - self.x0) if self.x1 != self.x0 else None
def __contains__(self, c):
return (self.x0 <= c.x <= self.x1 and
min(self.y0, self.y1) <= c.y <= max(self.y0, self.y1) and
(not self.slope or -epsilon < (c.y - self.y(c.x)) < epsilon))
def y(self, x):
return self.slope * (x - self.x0) + self.y0
if __name__ == '__main__':
import doctest
doctest.testmod()
The length of the segment is not important, thus using a square root is not required and should be avoided since we could lose some precision.
class Point:
def __init__(self, x, y):
self.x = x
self.y = y
class Segment:
def __init__(self, a, b):
self.a = a
self.b = b
def is_between(self, c):
# Check if slope of a to c is the same as a to b ;
# that is, when moving from a.x to c.x, c.y must be proportionally
# increased than it takes to get from a.x to b.x .
# Then, c.x must be between a.x and b.x, and c.y must be between a.y and b.y.
# => c is after a and before b, or the opposite
# that is, the absolute value of cmp(a, b) + cmp(b, c) is either 0 ( 1 + -1 )
# or 1 ( c == a or c == b)
a, b = self.a, self.b
return ((b.x - a.x) * (c.y - a.y) == (c.x - a.x) * (b.y - a.y) and
abs(cmp(a.x, c.x) + cmp(b.x, c.x)) <= 1 and
abs(cmp(a.y, c.y) + cmp(b.y, c.y)) <= 1)
Some random example of usage :
a = Point(0,0)
b = Point(50,100)
c = Point(25,50)
d = Point(0,8)
print Segment(a,b).is_between(c)
print Segment(a,b).is_between(d)
Ok, lots of mentions of linear algebra (cross product of vectors) and this works in a real (ie continuous or floating point) space but the question specifically stated that the two points were expressed as integers and thus a cross product is not the correct solution although it can give an approximate solution.
The correct solution is to use Bresenham's Line Algorithm between the two points and to see if the third point is one of the points on the line. If the points are sufficiently distant that calculating the algorithm is non-performant (and it'd have to be really large for that to be the case) I'm sure you could dig around and find optimisations.
how about just ensuring that the slope is the same and the point is between the others?
given points (x1, y1) and (x2, y2) ( with x2 > x1) and candidate point (a,b)
if (b-y1) / (a-x1) = (y2-y2) / (x2-x1) And x1 < a < x2
Then (a,b) must be on line between (x1,y1) and (x2, y2)