Problem 51. Find the two most distant points

Created by Cody Team

Solve Later

Given a collection of points, return the indices of the rows that contain the two points most distant from one another. The input vector p has two columns corresponding to the x and y coordinates of each point. Return ix, the (sorted) pair of indices pointing to the remotest rows. There will always be one unique such pair of points.

So if

 p = [0 0]
     [1 0]
     [2 2]
     [0 1]

Then

 ix = [1 3]

That is, the two points p(1,:) and p(3,:) are farthest apart.

Solve

Solution Stats

5739 Solutions
2877 Solvers

Last Solution submitted on Jan 14, 2025

Last 200 Solutions

Problem Comments

7 Comments

7 Comments

Show 4 older comments

Jean-Marie Sainthillier on 19 Jul 2012

More easy that it seems.

Carl Witthoft on 20 Nov 2015

You need to specify "Euclidean" distance :-)

Jerivington on 6 Jun 2016

Good problem, not too hard but required thinking

Dima Panna on 3 Jun 2019

Please add the next test :
p = [0,0;
2,1;
2,6;
1,6];
ix_correct = [1 3];
assert(isequal(mostDistant(p),ix_correct))

The solutions of the form:
[~,indx]=max(dist(p'));
unique(indx)

will fail, the last line will return an extra index [1,3,4] instead of just [1,3]

heart on 8 Feb 2020

refer to
Convex Hull therom and the Graham's Scan method

Can Tekin on 12 Jun 2020

Peter on 16 Aug 2023

Nice one!

Solution Comments

Show comments

Problem Recent Solvers2877

Problem Tags

Community Treasure Hunt

Find the treasures in MATLAB Central and discover how the community can help you!

Start Hunting!

Problem 51. Find the two most distant points

Solution Stats

Last 200 Solutions

Problem Comments

Solution Comments

Problem Recent Solvers2877

Suggested Problems

More from this Author96

Problem Tags

Community Treasure Hunt

Problem 51. Find the two most distant points

Solution Stats

Last 200 Solutions

Problem Comments

Solution Comments

Problem Recent Solvers2877

Suggested Problems

More from this Author96

Problem Tags

Community Treasure Hunt

Players