This Challenge is to determine the minimum distance from a 2-D line segment defined by two points to a point.

The point is (px,py) and the segment is [(vx,vy) to (wx,wy)].

Input are the three defining points and the output is distance.

Input (px py vx vy wx wy): 1 1 0 3 3 0

Output distance: .7071

Point is beyond perpendicular to segment.

Input (px py vx vy wx wy): 4 3 -100 0 0 0

Output distance: 5

Follow Up Challenges:

1) Minimum distance between non-contiguous N-sided polygons

2) USC Spring 2013 ACM: Walking on Thin Ice

Solve

Solution Stats

298 Solutions

61 Solvers

Last Solution submitted on Nov 26, 2025

Last 200 Solutions

Problem Comments

Solution Comments

Show comments

Problem Recent Solvers61

Chris Cleveland George Berken Mehdi Dehghan Minh

Suggested Problems

More from this Author308

Problem Tags

Community Treasure Hunt

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

Start Hunting!