How to calculate total distance traveled from position vs time experimental data

I have some experimental data like this (position against time), how do i find the scalar value of distance moved?

This should be 10+16+16+14=56m.* fixed dumb error

Not interested in direction just magnitude of movement.

Thanks!

[Raj]

Shouldn't it be 10(BC)+16(DE)+16(FG)+14(GH)?

[darova]

Why not 10+16+16+14 ?

[Steven Brace]

Doh, looks like i need to go back to school! Yeh thats what I meant to type!

Answer 1

[Alex Mcaulley]

Following your image, you have a position array like:

position = [10,10,0,0,-16,-16,0,14];

Then to calculate the total distance:

distance = sum(abs(diff(position)))

[Steven Brace]

Nice, I did think this would proabbly be the solution, but thought I would have to use a loop to do it, bu nice to see it can be done in one line!

Thanks!