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sortboundaries

Sort polyshape boundaries

Description

example

polyout = sortboundaries(polyin,criterion,direction) returns a polyshape object whose boundaries are sorted according to the specified criterion and direction. For example, polyout = sortboundaries(polyin,'area','ascend') returns a polyshape whose boundaries are the same as polyin. polyout lists the boundaries in ascending order by their area.

polyout = sortboundaries(polyin,'centroid',direction,'ReferencePoint',point) returns a polyshape whose boundaries are sorted based on the distance of the centroid of each boundary to a reference point.

Examples

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Sort the boundaries of a polygon according to their number of sides in order to access a single boundary at a time.

Create a polygon containing two boundaries, one with three sides and one with four sides.

x1 = [0 1 1 0];
y1 = [0 0 1 1];
x2 = [2 3 2.5];
y2 = [2 2 3];
polyin = polyshape({x1,x2},{y1,y2});
plot(polyin)

Sort the boundaries in descending order according to their number of sides, so that the four-sided boundary is indexed first in the output polyshape object.

polyout = sortboundaries(polyin,'numsides','descend');

You now can reference the four-sided boundary based on its index, for example when you want to access the boundary's vertices or compute its area.

[x,y] = boundary(polyout,1)
x = 5×1

     0
     0
     1
     1
     0

y = 5×1

     0
     1
     1
     0
     0

area(polyout,1)
ans = 1

Input Arguments

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Input polyshape, specified as a scalar, vector, matrix, or multidimensional array.

Data Types: polyshape

Sort criterion, specified as one of these values:

  • 'area' — Sort by boundary area.

  • 'perimeter' — Sort by boundary perimeter.

  • 'numsides' — Sort by the number of sides of each boundary.

  • 'centroid' — Sort by the distance from the centroid of each boundary to the reference point (0,0).

Sort direction, specified as 'ascend' or 'descend'.

Reference point, specified as a two-element row vector. The first element is the x-coordinate of the reference point, and the second element is the y-coordinate.

Extended Capabilities

Version History

Introduced in R2017b