Calculating distances on a 3d surface

Hey everyone,

I have the task that I need to calculate the distance of a 3d point to other points on a given surface.

Is there any Matlab function for that? Would be super helpful!

Kind regards,

Timon

[Walter Roberson]

Is the surface given through a set of x, y, z coordinates, or is the surface given by formula?

[Timon Merk]

The surface is given by a set of xyz coordinates. Thanks for pointing that out!

[John D'Errico]

The distance would often be complex to compute for a completely general curved surface, expecially if there are regions where the curvature changes sign. A triangulated surface could also get pretty nasty.

[Walter Roberson]

John is right: distance along a surface can be complicated to compute. bwdistgeodesic() can help if the surface is voxelized, though.

On the other hand, distance through 3 space is quite easy to get in this situation, using pdist2()

[KSSV]

Attach your data...and show the distance you want to find between points pictorially.