Largest rectangular sub matrix with the same number - algorithm

I am trying to come up with a dynamic programming algorithm that finds the largest sub matrix within a matrix that consists of the same number:
example:
{5 5 8}
{5 5 7}
{3 4 1}
Answer : 4 elements due to the matrix
5 5
5 5

This is a question I already answered here (and here, modified version). In both cases the algorithm was applied to binary case (zeros and ones), but the modification for arbitrary numbers is quite easy (but sorry, I keep the images for the binary version of the problem). You can do this very efficiently by two pass linear O(n) time algorithm - n being number of elements. However, this is not a dynamic programming - I think using dynamic programming here would be clumsy and inefficient in the end, because of the difficulties with problem decomposition, as the OP mentioned - unless its a homework - but in that case you can try to impress by this algorithm :-) as there's obviously no faster solution than O(n).
Algorithm (pictures depict binary case):
Say you want to find largest rectangle of free (white) elements.
Here follows the two pass linear O(n) time algorithm (n being number of elemets):
1) in a first pass, go by columns, from bottom to top, and for each element, denote the number of consecutive elements available up to this one:
repeat, until:
Pictures depict the binary case. In case of arbitrary numbers you hold 2 matrices - first with the original numbers and second with the auxiliary numbers that are filled in the image above. You have to check the original matrix and if you find a number different from the previous one, you just start the numbering (in the auxiliary matrix) again from 1.
2) in a second pass you go by rows, holding data structure of potential rectangles, i.e. the rectangles containing current position somewhere at the top edge. See the following picture (current position is red, 3 potential rectangles - purple - height 1, green - height 2 and yellow - height 3):
For each rectangle we keep its height k and its left edge. In other words we keep track of the sums of consecutive numbers that were >= k (i.e. potential rectangles of height k). This data structure can be represented by an array with double linked list linking occupied items, and the array size would be limited by the matrix height.
Pseudocode of 2nd pass (non-binary version with arbitrary numbers):
var m[] // original matrix
var aux[] // auxiliary matrix filled in the 1st pass
var rect[] // array of potential rectangles, indexed by their height
// the occupied items are also linked in double linked list,
// ordered by height
foreach row = 1..N // go by rows
foreach col = 1..M
if (col > 1 AND m[row, col] != m[row, col - 1]) // new number
close_potential_rectangles_higher_than(0); // close all rectangles
height = aux[row, col] // maximal height possible at current position
if (!rect[height]) { // rectangle with height does not exist
create rect[height] // open new rectangle
if (rect[height].next) // rectangle with nearest higher height
// if it exists, start from its left edge
rect[height].left_col = rect[height].next.left_col
else
rect[height].left_col = col;
}
close_potential_rectangles_higher_than(height)
end for // end row
close_potential_rectangles_higher_than(0);
// end of row -> close all rect., supposing col is M+1 now!
end for // end matrix
The function for closing rectangles:
function close_potential_rectangles_higher_than(height)
close_r = rectangle with highest height (last item in dll)
while (close_r.height > height) { // higher? close it
area = close_r.height * (col - close_r.left_col)
if (area > max_area) { // we have maximal rectangle!
max_area = area
max_topleft = [row, close_r.left_col]
max_bottomright = [row + height - 1, col - 1]
}
close_r = close_r.prev
// remove the rectangle close_r from the double linked list
}
end function
This way you can also get all maximum rectangles. So in the end you get:
And what the complexity will be? You see that the function close_potential_rectangles_higher_than is O(1) per closed rectangle. Because for each field we create 1 potential rectangle at the maximum, the total number of potential rectangles ever present in particular row is never higher than the length of the row. Therefore, complexity of this function is O(1) amortized!
So the whole complexity is O(n) where n is number of matrix elements.

A dynamic solution:
Define a new matrix A wich will store in A[i,j] two values: the width and the height of the largest submatrix with the left upper corner at i,j, fill this matrix starting from the bottom right corner, by rows bottom to top. You'll find four cases:
case 1: none of the right or bottom neighbour elements in the original matrix are equal to the current one, i.e: M[i,j] != M[i+1,j] and M[i,j] != M[i,j+1] being M the original matrix, in this case, the value of A[i,j] is 1x1
case 2: the neighbour element to the right is equal to the current one but the bottom one is different, the value of A[i,j].width is A[i+1,j].width+1 and A[i,j].height=1
case 3: the neighbour element to the bottom is equal but the right one is different, A[i,j].width=1, A[i,j].height=A[i,j+1].height+1
case 4: both neighbours are equal: A[i,j].width = min(A[i+1,j].width+1,A[i,j+1].width) and A[i,j].height = min(A[i,j+1]+1,A[i+1,j])
the size of the largest matrix that has the upper left corner at i,j is A[i,j].width*A[i,j].height so you can update the max value found while calculating the A[i,j]
the bottom row and the rightmost column elements are treated as if their neighbours to the bottom and to the right respectively are different
in your example, the resulting matrix A would be:
{2:2 1:2 1:1}
{2:1 1:1 1:1}
{1:1 1:1 1:1}
being w:h width:height

Modification to the above answer:
Define a new matrix A wich will store in A[i,j] two values: the width and the height of the largest submatrix with the left upper corner at i,j, fill this matrix starting from the bottom right corner, by rows bottom to top. You'll find four cases:
case 1: none of the right or bottom neighbour elements in the original matrix are equal to the current one, i.e: M[i,j] != M[i+1,j] and M[i,j] != M[i,j+1] being M the original matrix, in this case, the value of A[i,j] is 1x1
case 2: the neighbour element to the right is equal to the current one but the bottom one is different, the value of A[i,j].width is A[i+1,j].width+1 and A[i,j].height=1
case 3: the neighbour element to the bottom is equal but the right one is different, A[i,j].width=1, A[i,j].height=A[i,j+1].height+1
case 4: both neighbours are equal:
Three rectangles are considered:
1. A[i,j].width=A[i,j+1].width+1; A[i,j].height=1;
A[i,j].height=A[i+1,j].height+1; a[i,j].width=1;
A[i,j].width = min(A[i+1,j].width+1,A[i,j+1].width) and A[i,j].height = min(A[i,j+1]+1,A[i+1,j])
The one with the max area in the above three cases will be considered to represent the rectangle at this position.
The size of the largest matrix that has the upper left corner at i,j is A[i,j].width*A[i,j].height so you can update the max value found while calculating the A[i,j]
the bottom row and the rightmost column elements are treated as if their neighbours to the bottom and to the right respectively are different.

This question is a duplicate. I have tried to flag it as a duplicate. Here is a Python solution, which also returns the position and shape of the largest rectangular submatrix:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import numpy
s = '''5 5 8
5 5 7
3 4 1'''
nrows = 3
ncols = 3
skip_not = 5
area_max = (0, [])
a = numpy.fromstring(s, dtype=int, sep=' ').reshape(nrows, ncols)
w = numpy.zeros(dtype=int, shape=a.shape)
h = numpy.zeros(dtype=int, shape=a.shape)
for r in range(nrows):
for c in range(ncols):
if not a[r][c] == skip_not:
continue
if r == 0:
h[r][c] = 1
else:
h[r][c] = h[r-1][c]+1
if c == 0:
w[r][c] = 1
else:
w[r][c] = w[r][c-1]+1
minw = w[r][c]
for dh in range(h[r][c]):
minw = min(minw, w[r-dh][c])
area = (dh+1)*minw
if area > area_max[0]:
area_max = (area, [(r, c, dh+1, minw)])
print('area', area_max[0])
for t in area_max[1]:
print('coord and shape', t)
Output:
area 4
coord and shape (1, 1, 2, 2)

Related

Maximum possible number of rectangles that can be crossed with a single straight line

I found this challenge problem which states the following :
Suppose that there are n rectangles on the XY plane. Write a program to calculate the maximum possible number of rectangles that can be crossed with a single straight line drawn on this plane.
I have been brainstorming for quite a time but couldn't find any solution.
Maybe at some stage, we use dynamic programming steps but couldn't figure out how to start.
Here is a sketch of an O(n^2 log n) solution.
First, the preliminaries shared with other answers.
When we have a line passing through some rectangles, we can translate it to any of the two sides until it passes through a corner of some rectangle.
After that, we fix that corner as the center of rotation and rotate the line to any of the two sides until it passes through another corner.
During the whole process, all points of intersection between our line and rectangle sides stayed on these sides, so the number of intersections stayed the same, as did the number of rectangles crossed by the line.
As a result, we can consider only lines which pass through two rectangle corners, which is capped by O(n^2), and is a welcome improvement compared to the infinite space of arbitrary lines.
So, how do we efficiently check all these lines?
First, let us have an outer loop which fixes one point A and then considers all lines passing through A.
There are O(n) choices of A.
Now, we have one point A fixed, and want to consider all lines AB passing through all other corners B.
In order to do that, first sort all other corners B according to the polar angle of AB, or, in other words, angle between axis Ox and vector AB.
Angles are measured from -PI to +PI or from 0 to 2 PI or otherwise, the point in which we cut the circle to sort angles can be arbitrary.
The sorting is done in O(n log n).
Now, we have points B1, B2, ..., Bk sorted by the polar angle around point A (their number k is something like 4n-4, all corners of all rectangles except the one where point A is a corner).
First, look at the line AB1 and count the number of rectangles crossed by that line in O(n).
After that, consider rotating AB1 to AB2, then AB2 to AB3, all the way to ABk.
The events which happen during the rotation are as follows:
When we rotate to ABi, and Bi is the first corner of some rectangle in our order, the number of rectangles crossed increases by 1 as soon as the rotating line hits Bi.
When we rotate to ABj, and Bj is the last corner of some rectangle in our order, the number of rectangles crossed decreases by 1 as soon as the line rotates past Bj.
Which corners are first and last can be established with some O(n) preprocessing, after the sort, but before considering the ordered events.
In short, we can rotate to the next such event and update the number of rectangles crossed in O(1).
And there are k = O(n) events in total.
What's left to do is to track the global maximum of this quantity throughout the whole algorithm.
The answer is just this maximum.
The whole algorithm runs in O(n * (n log n + n + n)), which is O(n^2 log n), just as advertised.
Solution
In the space of all lines in the graph, the lines which pass by a corner are exactly the ones where the number or intersections is about to decrease. In other words, they each form a local maximum.
And for every line which passes by at least one corner, there exist an associated line that passes by two corners that has the same number of intersections.
The conclusion is that we only need to check the lines formed by two rectangle corners as they form a set that fully represents the local maxima of our problem. From those we pick the one which has the most intersections.
Time complexity
This solution first needs to recovers all lines that pass by two corners. The number of such line is O(n^2).
We then need to count the number of intersections between a given line and a rectangle. This can obviously be done in O(n) by comparing to each rectangles.
There might be a more efficient way to proceed, but we know that this algorithm is then at most O(n^3).
Python3 implementation
Here is a Python implementation of this algorithm. I oriented it more toward readability than efficiency, but it does exactly what the above defines.
def get_best_line(rectangles):
"""
Given a set of rectangles, return a line which intersects the most rectangles.
"""
# Recover all corners from all rectangles
corners = set()
for rectangle in rectangles:
corners |= set(rectangle.corners)
corners = list(corners)
# Recover all lines passing by two corners
lines = get_all_lines(corners)
# Return the one which has the highest number of intersections with rectangles
return max(
((line, count_intersections(rectangles, line)) for line in lines),
key=lambda x: x[1])
This implementation uses the following helpers.
def get_all_lines(points):
"""
Return a generator providing all lines generated
by a combination of two points out of 'points'
"""
for i in range(len(points)):
for j in range(i, len(points)):
yield Line(points[i], points[j])
def count_intersections(rectangles, line):
"""
Return the number of intersections with rectangles
"""
count = 0
for rectangle in rectangles:
if line in rectangle:
count += 1
return count
And here are the class definition that serve as data structure for rectangles and lines.
import itertools
from decimal import Decimal
class Rectangle:
def __init__(self, x_range, y_range):
"""
a rectangle is defined as a range in x and a range in y.
By example, the rectangle (0, 0), (0, 1), (1, 0), (1, 1) is given by
Rectangle((0, 1), (0, 1))
"""
self.x_range = sorted(x_range)
self.y_range = sorted(y_range)
def __contains__(self, line):
"""
Return whether 'line' intersects the rectangle.
To do so we check if the line intersects one of the diagonals of the rectangle
"""
c1, c2, c3, c4 = self.corners
x1 = line.intersect(Line(c1, c4))
x2 = line.intersect(Line(c2, c3))
if x1 is True or x2 is True \
or x1 is not None and self.x_range[0] <= x1 <= self.x_range[1] \
or x2 is not None and self.x_range[0] <= x2 <= self.x_range[1]:
return True
else:
return False
#property
def corners(self):
"""Return the corners of the rectangle sorted in dictionary order"""
return sorted(itertools.product(self.x_range, self.y_range))
class Line:
def __init__(self, point1, point2):
"""A line is defined by two points in the graph"""
x1, y1 = Decimal(point1[0]), Decimal(point1[1])
x2, y2 = Decimal(point2[0]), Decimal(point2[1])
self.point1 = (x1, y1)
self.point2 = (x2, y2)
def __str__(self):
"""Allows to print the equation of the line"""
if self.slope == float('inf'):
return "y = {}".format(self.point1[0])
else:
return "y = {} * x + {}".format(round(self.slope, 2), round(self.origin, 2))
#property
def slope(self):
"""Return the slope of the line, returning inf if it is a vertical line"""
x1, y1, x2, y2 = *self.point1, *self.point2
return (y2 - y1) / (x2 - x1) if x1 != x2 else float('inf')
#property
def origin(self):
"""Return the origin of the line, returning None if it is a vertical line"""
x, y = self.point1
return y - x * self.slope if self.slope != float('inf') else None
def intersect(self, other):
"""
Checks if two lines intersect.
Case where they intersect: return the x coordinate of the intersection
Case where they do not intersect: return None
Case where they are superposed: return True
"""
if self.slope == other.slope:
if self.origin != other.origin:
return None
else:
return True
elif self.slope == float('inf'):
return self.point1[0]
elif other.slope == float('inf'):
return other.point1[0]
elif self.slope == 0:
return other.slope * self.origin + other.origin
elif other.slope == 0:
return self.slope * other.origin + self.origin
else:
return (other.origin - self.origin) / (self.slope - other.slope)
Example
Here is a working example of the above code.
rectangles = [
Rectangle([0.5, 1], [0, 1]),
Rectangle([0, 1], [1, 2]),
Rectangle([0, 1], [2, 3]),
Rectangle([2, 4], [2, 3]),
]
# Which represents the following rectangles (not quite to scale)
#
# *
# *
#
# ** **
# ** **
#
# **
# **
We can clearly see that an optimal solution should find a line that passes by three rectangles and that is indeed what it outputs.
print('{} with {} intersections'.format(*get_best_line(rectangles)))
# prints: y = 0.50 * x + -5.00 with 3 intersections
(Edit of my earlier answer that considered rotating the plane.)
Here's sketch of the O(n^2) algorithm, which combines Gassa's idea with Evgeny Kluev's reference to dual line arrangements as sorted angular sequences.
We start out with a doubly connected edge list or similar structure, allowing us to split an edge in O(1) time, and a method to traverse the faces we create as we populate a 2-dimensional plane. For simplicity, let's use just three of the twelve corners on the rectangles below:
9| (5,9)___(7,9)
8| | |
7| (4,6)| |
6| ___C | |
5| | | | |
4| |___| | |
3| ___ |___|(7,3)
2| | | B (5,3)
1|A|___|(1,1)
|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
We insert the three points (corners) in the dual plane according to the following transformation:
point p => line p* as a*p_x - p_y
line l as ax + b => point l* as (a, -b)
Let's enter the points in order A, B, C. We first enter A => y = x - 1. Since there is only one edge so far, we insert B => y = 5x - 3, which creates the vertex, (1/2, -1/2) and splits our edge. (One elegant aspect of this solution is that each vertex (point) in the dual plane is actually the dual point of the line passing through the rectangles' corners. Observe 1 = 1/2*1 + 1/2 and 3 = 1/2*5 + 1/2, points (1,1) and (5,3).)
Entering the last point, C => y = 4x - 6, we now look for the leftmost face (could be an incomplete face) where it will intersect. This search is O(n) time since we have to try each face. We find and create the vertex (-3, -18), splitting the lower edge of 5x - 3 and traverse up the edges to split the right half of x - 1 at vertex (5/3, 2/3). Each insertion has O(n) time since we must first find the leftmost face, then traverse each face to split edges and mark the vertices (intersection points for the line).
In the dual plane we now have:
After constructing the line arrangement, we begin our iteration on our three example points (rectangle corners). Part of the magic in reconstructing a sorted angular sequence in relation to one point is partitioning the angles (each corresponding with an ordered line intersection in the dual plane) into those corresponding with a point on the right (with a greater x-coordinate) and those on the left and concatenating the two sequences to get an ordered sequence from -90 deg to -270 degrees. (The points on the right transform to lines with positive slopes in relation to the fixed point; the ones on left, with negative slopes. Rotate your sevice/screen clockwise until the line for (C*) 4x - 6 becomes horizontal and you'll see that B* now has a positive slope and A* negative.)
Why does it work? If a point p in the original plane is transformed into a line p* in the dual plane, then traversing that dual line from left to right corresponds with rotating a line around p in the original plane that also passes through p. The dual line marks all the slopes of this rotating line by the x-coordinate from negative infinity (vertical) to zero (horizontal) to infinity (vertical again).
(Let's summarize the rectangle-count-logic, updating the count_array for the current rectangle while iterating through the angular sequence: if it's 1, increment the current intersection count; if it's 4 and the line is not directly on a corner, set it to 0 and decrement the current intersection count.)
Pick A, lookup A*
=> x - 1.
Obtain the concatenated sequence by traversing the edges in O(n)
=> [(B*) 5x - 3, (C*) 4x - 6] ++ [No points left of A]
Initialise an empty counter array, count_array of length n-1
Initialise a pointer, ptr, to track rectangle corners passed in
the opposite direction of the current vector.
Iterate:
vertex (1/2, -1/2)
=> line y = 1/2x + 1/2 (AB)
perform rectangle-count-logic
if the slope is positive (1/2 is positive):
while the point at ptr is higher than the line:
perform rectangle-count-logic
else if the slope is negative:
while the point at ptr is lower than the line:
perform rectangle-count-logic
=> ptr passes through the rest of the points up to the corner
across from C, so intersection count is unchanged
vertex (5/3, 2/3)
=> line y = 5/3x - 2/3 (AC)
We can see that (5,9) is above the line through AC (y = 5/3x - 2/3), which means at this point we would have counted the intersection with the rightmost rectangle and not yet reset the count for it, totaling 3 rectangles for this line.
We can also see in the graph of the dual plane, the other angular sequences:
for point B => B* => 5x - 3: [No points right of B] ++ [(C*) 4x - 6, (A*) x - 1]
for point C => C* => 4x - 6: [(B*) 5x - 3] ++ [(A*) x - 1]
(note that we start at -90 deg up to -270 deg)
How about the following algorithm:
RES = 0 // maximum number of intersections
CORNERS[] // all rectangles corners listed as (x, y) points
for A in CORNERS
for B in CORNERS // optimization: starting from corner next to A
RES = max(RES, CountIntersectionsWithLine(A.x, A.y, B.x, B.y))
return RES
In other words, start drawing lines from each rectangle corner to each other rectangle corner and find the maximum number of intersections. As suggested by #weston, we can avoid calculating same line twice by starting inner loop from the corner next to A.
If you consider a rotating line at angle Θ and if you project all rectangles onto this line, you obtain N line segments. The maximum number of rectangles crossed by a perpendicular to this line is easily obtained by sorting the endpoints by increasing abscissa and keeping a count of the intervals met from left to right (keep a trace of whether an endpoint is a start or an end). This is shown in green.
Now two rectangles are intersected by all the lines at an angle comprised between the two internal tangents [example in red], so that all "event" angles to be considered (i.e. all angles for which a change of count can be observed) are these N(N-1) angles.
Then the brute force resolution scheme is
for all limit angles (O(N²) of them),
project the rectangles on the rotating line (O(N) operations),
count the overlaps and keep the largest (O(N Log N) to sort, then O(N) to count).
This takes in total O(N³Log N) operations.
Assuming that the sorts needn't be re-done in full for every angle if we can do them incrementally, we can hope for a complexity lowered to O(N³). This needs to be checked.
Note:
The solutions that restrict the lines to pass through the corner of one rectangle are wrong. If you draw wedges from the four corners of a rectangle to the whole extent of another, there will remain empty space in which can lie a whole rectangle that won't be touched, even though there exists a line through the three of them.
We can have an O(n^2 (log n + m)) dynamic-programming method by adapting Andriy Berestovskyy's idea of iterating over the corners slightly to insert the relationship of the current corner vis a vis all the other rectangles into an interval tree for each of our 4n iteration cycles.
A new tree will be created for the corner we are trying. For each rectangle's four corners we'll iterate over each of the other rectangles. What we'll insert will be the angles marking the arc the paired-rectangle's farthest corners create in relation to the current fixed corner.
In the example directly below, for the fixed lower rectangle's corner R when inserting the record for the middle rectangle, we would insert the angles marking the arc from p2 to p1 in relation to R (about (37 deg, 58 deg)). Then when we check the high rectangle in relation to R, we'll insert the interval of angles marking the arc from p4 to p3 in relation to R (about (50 deg, 62 deg)).
When we insert the next arc record, we'll check it against all intersecting intervals and keep a record of the most intersections.
(Note that because any arc on a 360 degree circle for our purpose has a counterpart rotated 180 degrees, we may need to make an arbitrary cutoff (any alternative insights would be welcome). For example, this means that an arc from 45 degrees to 315 degrees would split into two: [0, 45] and [135, 180]. Any non-split arc could only intersect with one or the other but either way, we may need an extra hash to make sure rectangles are not double-counted.)

Ordering coordinates from top left to bottom right

How can I go about trying to order the points of an irregular array from top left to bottom right, such as in the image below?
Methods I've considered are:
calculate the distance of each point from the top left of the image (Pythagoras's theorem) but apply some kind of weighting to the Y coordinate in an attempt to prioritise points on the same 'row' e.g. distance = SQRT((x * x) + (weighting * (y * y)))
sort the points into logical rows, then sort each row.
Part of the difficulty is that I do not know how many rows and columns will be present in the image coupled with the irregularity of the array of points. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Even though the question is a bit older, I recently had a similar problem when calibrating a camera.
The algorithm is quite simple and based on this paper:
Find the top left point: min(x+y)
Find the top right point: max(x-y)
Create a straight line from the points.
Calculate the distance of all points to the line
If it is smaller than the radius of the circle (or a threshold): point is in the top line.
Otherwise: point is in the rest of the block.
Sort points of the top line by x value and save.
Repeat until there are no points left.
My python implementation looks like this:
#detect the keypoints
detector = cv2.SimpleBlobDetector_create(params)
keypoints = detector.detect(img)
img_with_keypoints = cv2.drawKeypoints(img, keypoints, np.array([]), (0, 0, 255),
cv2.DRAW_MATCHES_FLAGS_DRAW_RICH_KEYPOINTS)
points = []
keypoints_to_search = keypoints[:]
while len(keypoints_to_search) > 0:
a = sorted(keypoints_to_search, key=lambda p: (p.pt[0]) + (p.pt[1]))[0] # find upper left point
b = sorted(keypoints_to_search, key=lambda p: (p.pt[0]) - (p.pt[1]))[-1] # find upper right point
cv2.line(img_with_keypoints, (int(a.pt[0]), int(a.pt[1])), (int(b.pt[0]), int(b.pt[1])), (255, 0, 0), 1)
# convert opencv keypoint to numpy 3d point
a = np.array([a.pt[0], a.pt[1], 0])
b = np.array([b.pt[0], b.pt[1], 0])
row_points = []
remaining_points = []
for k in keypoints_to_search:
p = np.array([k.pt[0], k.pt[1], 0])
d = k.size # diameter of the keypoint (might be a theshold)
dist = np.linalg.norm(np.cross(np.subtract(p, a), np.subtract(b, a))) / np.linalg.norm(b) # distance between keypoint and line a->b
if d/2 > dist:
row_points.append(k)
else:
remaining_points.append(k)
points.extend(sorted(row_points, key=lambda h: h.pt[0]))
keypoints_to_search = remaining_points
Jumping on this old thread because I just dealt with the same thing: sorting a sloppily aligned grid of placed objects by left-to-right, top to bottom location. The drawing at the top in the original post sums it up perfectly, except that this solution supports rows with varying numbers of nodes.
S. Vogt's script above was super helpful (and the script below is entirely based on his/hers), but my conditions are narrower. Vogt's solution accommodates a grid that may be tilted from the horizontal axis. I assume no tilting, so I don't need to compare distances from a potentially tilted top line, but rather from a single point's y value.
Javascript below:
interface Node {x: number; y: number; width:number; height:number;}
const sortedNodes = (nodeArray:Node[]) => {
let sortedNodes:Node[] = []; // this is the return value
let availableNodes = [...nodeArray]; // make copy of input array
while(availableNodes.length > 0){
// find y value of topmost node in availableNodes. (Change this to a reduce if you want.)
let minY = Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER;
for (const node of availableNodes){
minY = Math.min(minY, node.y)
}
// find nodes in top row: assume a node is in the top row when its distance from minY
// is less than its height
const topRow:Node[] = [];
const otherRows:Node[] = [];
for (const node of availableNodes){
if (Math.abs(minY - node.y) <= node.height){
topRow.push(node);
} else {
otherRows.push(node);
}
}
topRow.sort((a,b) => a.x - b.x); // we have the top row: sort it by x
sortedNodes = [...sortedNodes,...topRow] // append nodes in row to sorted nodes
availableNodes = [...otherRows] // update available nodes to exclude handled rows
}
return sortedNodes;
};
The above assumes that all node heights are the same. If you have some nodes that are much taller than others, get the value of the minimum node height of all nodes and use it instead of the iterated "node.height" value. I.e., you would change this line of the script above to use the minimum height of all nodes rather that the iterated one.
if (Math.abs(minY - node.y) <= node.height)
I propose the following idea:
1. count the points (p)
2. for each point, round it's x and y coordinates down to some number, like
x = int(x/n)*n, y = int(y/m)*m for some n,m
3. If m,n are too big, the number of counts will drop. Determine m, n iteratively so that the number of points p will just be preserved.
Starting values could be in alignment with max(x) - min(x). For searching employ a binary search. X and Y scaling would be independent of each other.
In natural words this would pin the individual points to grid points by stretching or shrinking the grid distances, until all points have at most one common coordinate (X or Y) but no 2 points overlap. You could call that classifying as well.

Positions on grid 'used'

I have a puzzle to solve which involves taking input which is size of grid. Grid is always square. Then a number of points on the grid are provided and the squares on the grid are 'taken' if they are immediately left or right or above or below.
Eg imagine a grid 10 x 10. If points are (1,1) bottom left and (10,10) top right, then if a point (2,1) is given then square positions left and right (10 squares) and above and below (another 9 squares) are taken. So using simple arithmetic, if grid is n squared then n + (n-1) squares will be taken on first point provided.
But it gets complicated if other points are provided as input. Eg if next point is eg (5,5) then another 19 squares will be 'taken' minus thos squares overlapping other point. so it gets complex. and of course a point say (3,1) could be provided which overlaps more.
Is there an algorithm for this type of problem?
Or is it simply a matter of holding a 2 dimensional array and placing an x for each taken square. then at end just totting up taken (or non-taken) squares. That would work but I was wndering if there is an easier way.
Keep two sets: X (storing all x-coords) and Y (storing all y-coords). The number of squares taken will be n * (|X| + |Y|) - |X| * |Y|. This follows because each unique x-coord removes a column of n squares, and each unique y-coord removes a row of n squares. But this counts the intersections of the removed rows and columns twice, so we subtract |X| * |Y| to account for this.
One way to do it is to keep track of the positions that are taken in some data structure, for example a set.
At the first step this involves adding n + (n - 1) squares to that data structure.
At the second (third, fourth) step etc this involves checking for each square at the horizontal and vertical line for the given (x, y) whether it's already in the data structure. If not then you add it to the data structure. Otherwise, if the point is already in there, then it was taken in an earlier step.
We can actually see that the first step is just a special case of the other rounds because in the first round no points are taken yet. So in general the algorithm is to keep track of the taken points and to add any new ones to a data structure.
So in pseudocode:
Create a data structure taken_points = empty data structure (e.g., a set)
Whenever you're processing a point (x, y):
Set a counter = 0.
Given a point (x, y):
for each point (px, py) on the horizontal and vertical lines that intersect with (x, y):
check if that point is already in taken_points
if it is, then do nothing
otherwise, add (px, py) to taken_points and increment counter
You've now updated taken_points to contain all the points that are taken so far and counter is the number of points that were taken in the most recent round.
Here is the way to do it without using large space:-
rowVisited[n] = {0}
colVisited[n] = {0}
totalrows = 0 and totalcol = 0 for total rows and columns visited
total = 0; // for point taken for x,y
given point (x,y)
if(!rowVisited[x]) {
total = total + n - totalcol;
}
if(!colVisited[y]) {
total = total + n-1 - totalrows + rowVisited[x];
}
if(!rowVisited[x]) {
rowVisited[x] = 1;
totalrows++;
}
if(!colVisited[x]) {
colVisited[x] = 1;
totalcol++;
}
print total

Algorithm for fitting points to a grid

I have a list of points in 2D space that form an (imperfect) grid:
x x x x
x x x x
x
x x x
x x x x
What's the best way to fit these to a rigid grid (i.e. create a two-dimendional array and work out where each point fits in that array)?
There are no holes in the grid, but I don't know in advance what its dimensions are.
EDIT: The grid is not necessarily regular (not even spacing between rows/cols)
A little bit of an image processing approach:
If you think of what you have as a binary image where the X is 1 and the rest is 0, you can sum up rows and columns, and use a peak finding algorithm to identify peaks which would correspond to x and y lines of the grid:
Your points as a binary image:
Sums of row/columns
Now apply some smoothing technique to the signal (e.g. lowess):
I'm sure you get the idea :-)
Good luck
The best I could come up with is a brute-force solution that calculates the grid dimensions that minimize the error in the square of the Euclidean distance between the point and its nearest grid intersection.
This assumes that the number of points p is exactly equal to the number of columns times the number of rows, and that each grid intersection has exactly one point on it. It also assumes that the minimum x/y value for any point is zero. If the minimum is greater than zero, just subtract the minimum x value from each point's x coordinate and the minimum y value from each point's y coordinate.
The idea is to create all of the possible grid dimensions given the number of points. In the example above with 16 points, we would make grids with dimensions 1x16, 2x8, 4x4, 8x2 and 16x1. For each of these grids we calculate where the grid intersections would lie by dividing the maximum width of the points by the number of columns minus 1, and the maximum height of the points by the number of rows minus 1. Then we fit each point to its closest grid intersection and find the error (square of the distance) between the point and the intersection. (Note that this only works if each point is closer to its intended grid intersection than to any other intersection.)
After summing the errors for each grid configuration individually (e.g. getting one error value for the 1x16 configuration, another for the 2x8 configuration and so on), we select the configuration with the lowest error.
Initialization:
P is the set of points such that P[i][0] is the x-coordinate and
P[i][1] is the y-coordinate
Let p = |P| or the number of points in P
Let max_x = the maximum x-coordinate in P
Let max_y = the maximum y-coordinate in P
(minimum values are assumed to be zero)
Initialize min_error_dist = +infinity
Initialize min_error_cols = -1
Algorithm:
for (col_count = 1; col_count <= n; col_count++) {
// only compute for integer # of rows and cols
if ((p % col_count) == 0) {
row_count = n/col_count;
// Compute the width of the columns and height of the rows
// If the number of columns is 1, let the column width be max_x
// (and similarly for rows)
if (col_count > 1) col_width = max_x/(col_count-1);
else col_width=max_x;
if (row_count > 1) row_height = max_y/(row_count-1);
else row_height=max_y;
// reset the error for the new configuration
error_dist = 0.0;
for (i = 0; i < n; i++) {
// For the current point, normalize the x- and y-coordinates
// so that it's in the range 0..(col_count-1)
// and 0..(row_count-1)
normalized_x = P[i][0]/col_width;
normalized_y = P[i][1]/row_height;
// Error is the sum of the squares of the distances between
// the current point and the nearest grid point
// (in both the x and y direction)
error_dist += (normalized_x - round(normalized_x))^2 +
(normalized_y - round(normalized_y))^2;
}
if (error_dist < min_error_dist) {
min_error_dist = error_dist;
min_error_cols = col_count;
}
}
}
return min_error_cols;
Once you've got the number of columns (and thus the number of rows) you can recompute the normalized values for each point and round them to get the grid intersection they belong to.
In the end I used this algorithm, inspired by beaker's:
Calculate all the possible dimensions of the grid, given the total number of points
For each possible dimension, fit the points to that dimension and calculate the variance in alignment:
Order the points by x-value
Group the points into columns: the first r points form the first column, where r is the number of rows
Within each column, order the points by y-value to determine which row they're in
For each row/column, calcuate the range of y-values/x-values
The variance in alignment is the maximum range found
Choose the dimension with the least variance in alignment
I wrote this algorithm that accounts for missing coordinates as well as coordinates with errors.
Python Code
# Input [x, y] coordinates of a 'sparse' grid with errors
xys = [[103,101],
[198,103],
[300, 99],
[ 97,205],
[304,202],
[102,295],
[200,303],
[104,405],
[205,394],
[298,401]]
def row_col_avgs(num_list, ratio):
# Finds the average of each row and column. Coordinates are
# assigned to a row and column by specifying an error ratio.
last_num = 0
sum_nums = 0
count_nums = 0
avgs = []
num_list.sort()
for num in num_list:
if num > (1 + ratio) * last_num and count_nums != 0:
avgs.append(int(round(sum_nums/count_nums,0)))
sum_nums = num
count_nums = 1
else:
sum_nums = sum_nums + num
count_nums = count_nums + 1
last_num = num
avgs.append(int(round(sum_nums/count_nums,0)))
return avgs
# Split coordinates into two lists of x's and y's
xs, ys = map(list, zip(*xys))
# Find averages of each row and column within a specified error.
x_avgs = row_col_avgs(xs, 0.1)
y_avgs = row_col_avgs(ys, 0.1)
# Return Completed Averaged Grid
avg_grid = []
for y_avg in y_avgs:
avg_row = []
for x_avg in x_avgs:
avg_row.append([int(x_avg), int(y_avg)])
avg_grid.append(avg_row)
print(avg_grid)
Code Output
[[[102, 101], [201, 101], [301, 101]],
[[102, 204], [201, 204], [301, 204]],
[[102, 299], [201, 299], [301, 299]],
[[102, 400], [201, 400], [301, 400]]]
I am also looking for another solution using linear algebra. See my question here.

Finding the optimal tiling strategy using squares of different sizes

I have shapes constructed out of 8x8 squares. I need to tile them using the fewest number of squares of size 8x8, 16x16, 32x32 and 64x64. Four 8x8 squares arranged in a square can be replaced by a single 16x16 square, e.g.:
What algorithm can be used to achieve this?
This calls for a dynamic programming solution. I'll assume we have a square[r][c] array of booleans which is true if (r, c) has a 1x1 square (I've simplified the solution to work with 1x1, 2x2, 4x4 and 8x8 squares to make it easier to follow, but it's easy to adapt). Pad it with a wall of false sentinel values on the top row and left column.
Define a 2d count array, where count[r][c] refers to the number of 1x1 squares in the region above and to the left of (r, c). We can add them up using a dp algorithm:
count[0..n][0..m] = 0
for i in 1..n:
for j in 1..m:
count[i][j] = count[i-1][j] + count[i][j-1] -
count[i-1][j-1] + square[i][j]
The above works by adding up two regions we already know the sum of, subtracting the doubly-counted area and adding in the new cell. Using the count array, we can test if a square region is fully covered in 1x1 squares in constant time using a similar method:
// p1 is the top-left coordinate, p2 the bottom-right
function region_count(p1, p2):
return count[p1.r][p1.c] - count[p1.r][p2.c-1] -
count[p2.r-1][p1.c] + 2*count[p2.r-1][p2.c-1]
We then create a second 2d min_squares array, where min_squares[r][c] refers to the minimum number of squares required to cover the original 1x1 squares. These values can be calculates using another dp:
min_squares = count
for i in 1..n:
for j in 1..m:
for size in [2, 4, 8]:
if i >= size and j >= size and
region_count((i-size, j-size), (i, j)) == size*size:
min_squares[i][j] = min(min_squares[i][j],
min_squares[i-size-1][j] +
min_squares[i][j-size-1] -
min_squares[i-size-1][j-size-1] +
1)
In order to reconstruct the tiling needed to get the calculated minimum, we use an auxiliary size_used[r][c] array which we use to keep track of the size of square placed at (r, c). From this we can recursively reconstruct the tiling:
function reconstruct(i, j):
if i < 0 or j < 0:
return
place square of size size_used[i][j] at (i-size_used[i][j]+1, j-size_used[i][j]+1)
reconstruct(i-size_used[i][j], j)
reconstruct(i, j-size_used[i][j])
You might want to look at Optimal way for partitioning a cell based shape into a minimal amount of rectangles - if I understood correctly, this is the same problem but for rectangles instead of squares.

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