The ability to automatically calculate the shortest distance from a point to a line is not available in MATLAB. To work around this, see the following function:
function d = point_to_line(pt, v1, v2)
a = v1 - v2;
b = pt - v2;
d = norm(cross(a,b)) / norm(a);
In this function, pt, v1, and v2 are the three-dimensional coordinates of the point, one vertex on the line, and a second vertex on the line, respectively. The following example illustrates how this function would be called:
v1 = [0,0,0];
v2 = [3,0,0];
pt = [0,5,0];
distance = point_to_line(pt,v1,v2)
