Most efficient way to find closest match in an array

Programming Questions

ekogan19

Most efficient way to find closest match in an array

in Programming Questions • 2 years ago

Hi all,

I am trying to figure out what the best way of determining which pixel in an array is the closest to some query color. For example, if I have an array of colors and some query color(100,100,5), I'd like to find the index of the element in my array which has the closest (by subtraction or euclidean distance) to that query. Preferably there is a fast way of doing this which doesn't involve looping.

Replies(1)

PhiLho

Re: Most efficient way to find closest match in an array

2 years ago

Perhaps there is a smart way I overlook, but I don't see something more efficient than looping over all the pixels, computing the "distance" of the color with the reference color and memorizing the current index if it is smaller than the smallest distance found so far.
Such search can be made more efficient with sorting and dichotomy but only for one dimensional arrays, I don't see a way to sort in three dimensions. Now, perhaps somebody smarter or more knowledgeable than me might have such solution, I am curious to see it.