Distance from a point to a line

In Euclidean geometry, the distance from a point to a line is the shortest distance from a given point to any point on an infinite straight line. It is the perpendicular distance of the point to the line, the length of the line segment which joins the point to nearest point on the line. The algebraic expression for calculating it can be derived and expressed in several ways. Knowing the distance from a point to a line can be useful in various situations—for example, finding the shortest distance to reach a road, quantifying the scatter on a graph, etc. In Deming regression, a type of linear curve fitting, if the dependent and independent variables have equal variance this results in orthogonal regression in which the degree of imperfection of the fit is measured for each data point as the perpendicular distance of the point from the regression line. In the case of a line in the plane given by the equation ax + by + c = 0, where a, b and c are real constants with a and b not both zero, the distance from the line to a point (x0, y0) is The point on this line which is closest to (x0, y0) has coordinates: Horizontal and vertical lines In the general equation of a line, ax + by + c = 0, a and b cannot both be zero unless c is also zero, in which case the equation does not define a line. If a = 0 and b ≠ 0, the line is horizontal and has equation y = −c/b. The distance from (x0, y0) to this line is measured along a vertical line segment of length y0 − (−c/b) = by0 + c/b in accordance with the formula. Similarly, for vertical lines (b = 0) the distance between the same point and the line is ax0 + c/a , as measured along a horizontal line segment. If the line passes through two points P1 = (x1, y1) and P2 = (x2, y2) then the distance of (x0, y0) from the line is: The denominator of this expression is the distance between P1 and P2. The numerator is twice the area of the triangle with its vertices at the three points, (x0, y0), P1 and P2. See: .

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Perpendicular distance

In geometry, the perpendicular distance between two objects is the distance from one to the other, measured along a line that is perpendicular to one or both. The distance from a point to a line is the distance to the nearest point on that line. That is the point at which a segment from it to the given point is perpendicular to the line. Likewise, the distance from a point to a curve is measured by a line segment that is perpendicular to a tangent line to the curve at the nearest point on the curve.

Skew lines

In three-dimensional geometry, skew lines are two lines that do not intersect and are not parallel. A simple example of a pair of skew lines is the pair of lines through opposite edges of a regular tetrahedron. Two lines that both lie in the same plane must either cross each other or be parallel, so skew lines can exist only in three or more dimensions. Two lines are skew if and only if they are not coplanar. If four points are chosen at random uniformly within a unit cube, they will almost surely define a pair of skew lines.

Distance from a point to a line

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