Algorithms: distribute elements far away from each other - algorithm

Question

I have an array of sorted integers. Given an integer N i need to place N largest elements further away from each other so that they have maximum space between each other. The remaining elements should be placed between these big items. For example, array of 10 with N=3 would result in [0, 5, 8, 2, 6, 9, 3, 7, 10, 4].
public static void main(String[] args) {
int[] start = {10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1};
int[] end = new int[10];
int N = 4;
int step = Math.round(start.length / N );
int y = 0;
int count = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < step; i++) {
for (int j = i; j<start.length; j = j + step) {
//System.out.println(j + " " + i);
if (count < start.length && start[count] != 0) {
end[j] = start[count];
count++;
}
}
}
System.out.println(end.toString());
}

Answer 1

You have an array of K elements. You have N max numbers you need to distribute. Then:
Step := K/N (removing the remainder)
Take any number from N maximum and insert it at Step/2 position.
Take other maximum numbers and insert it after the previous inserted maximum number at Step distance.
Giving [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. So K = 10, N = 3. Then Step = 3. So the first maximum is placed at 3/2 position
[1,10,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]
Then other 2 are put at 3 distance from each other:
[1,10,2,3,9,4,5,8,6,7]
The code:
std::vector<int> Distribute(std::vector<int> aSource, int aNumber)
{
auto step = aSource.size() / aNumber; // Note integer dividing.
for (int i = 0; i < aNumber; ++i)
{
auto place = aSource.end() - i * step - step / 2;
aSource.insert(place, aSource.front());
aSource.erase(aSource.begin());
}
return aSource;
}
int main()
{
std::vector<int> vec{10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,0,-1,-2,-3,-4,-5,-6,-7,-8,-9,-10};
auto res = Distribute(vec, 4);
for (auto e : res)
{
std::cout << e << ", ";
}
std::cout << std::endl;
}
Output:
6, 5, 4, 7, 3, 2, 1, 0, 8, -1, -2, -3, -4, 9, -5, -6, -7, -8, 10, -9, -10,