Closest Point on Path II

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Closest Point on Path II

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Last edited Feb 19, 2016

Created on Dec 18, 2013

This example demonstrates an approximate method for finding the closest point on an SVG path by sampling points along the path and computing their Voronoi tessellation. A range slider controls the sampling distance, where denser samples yield more accurate results but are computationally more expensive. The visualization uses d3.geom.voronoi to create the tessellation, d3.svg.line for path interpolation, and SVG path APIs like getPointAtLength and getTotalLength for sampling. Hovering over any Voronoi cell highlights the corresponding cell and its sampled point, visualizing how the approximation changes with sample density.

AI-generated description

As an alternative to the search algorithm, another approximate method for finding the closest point on any given SVG path is to sample points on that path and then compute the Voronoi tessellation. Use the range slider to control the distance between samples; denser samples produce more accurate results, but is more expensive to compute.

(Sampling paths can also be useful for path tweening.)

gpl-3.0 Licensed

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