Tags : computational geometry
Entries in this Tags : 2logs Showing : 1 - 2 / 2
Apr 23, 2011
Smallest enclosing ball in AutoCAD
Mar 04, 2010
The geometric median
The center of mass (=centroid) is defined as the center point minimizing the squared of the Euclidean distances (=variance).
If one of the source point is an outlier corrupting your dataset, and if that outlier goes to infinity, then your centroid follows it can is clearly not a robust centerpoint. The median on the contrary is defined as the center point minimising the sum of Euclidean distances. It is robust as it breaks only if n/2 outlier points go to infinity. However, there is no closed form solutions.
Doing some survey, I found that since Fermat (who allegedly first ask the question for 3 points), it has been studied and rediscovered in many communities. The current labeling of this point should be Fermat-Fagnano-Weber-Torricelli-Steiner point, and I forgot many names...
History is full of insights!
Frank.
code in .Net for computing a fast approximation of the smallest enclosing ball.
See also Riemannian extension