Normalizing 2D lines in Eigen C++ - c++

A line in the 2D plane can be represented with the implicit equation
f(x,y) = a*x + b*y + c = 0
= dot((a,b,c),(x,y,1))
If a^2 + b^2 = 1, then f is considered normalized and f(x,y) gives you the Euclidean (signed) distance to the line.
Say you are given a 3xK matrix (in Eigen) where each column represents a line:
Eigen::Matrix<float,3,Eigen::Dynamic> lines;
and you wish to normalize all K lines. Currently I do this a follows:
for (size_t i = 0; i < K; i++) { // for each column
const float s = lines.block(0,i,2,1).norm(); // s = sqrt(a^2 + b^2)
lines.col(i) /= s; // (a, b, c) /= s
}
I know there must be a more clever and efficient method for this that does not require looping. Any ideas?
EDIT: The following turns out being slower for optimized code... hmmm..
Eigen::VectorXf scales = lines.block(0,0,2,K).colwise().norm().cwiseInverse()
lines *= scales.asDiagonal()
I assume that this as something to do with creating KxK matrix scales.asDiagonal().
P.S. I could use Eigen::Hyperplane somehow, but the docs seem little opaque.

Related

Vectorization of weighted outer product

I am looking to accelerate the calculation of an approximate weighted covariance.
Specifically, I have a Eigen::VectorXd(N) w and a Eigen::MatrixXd(M,N) points. I'd like to calculate the sum of w(i)*points.col(i)*(points.col(i).transpose()).
I am using a for loop but would like to see if I can go faster:
Eigen::VectorXd w = Eigen::VectorXd(N) ;
Eigen::MatrixXd points = Eigen::MatrixXd(M,N) ;
Eigen::MatrixXd tempMatrix = Eigen::MatrixXd(M,M) ;
for (int i=0; i < N ; i++){
tempMatrix += w(i)*points.col(i)*(points.col(i).transpose());
}
Looking forward to see what can be done!
The following should work:
Eigen::MatrixXd tempMatrix; // not necessary to pre-allocate
// assigning the product allocates tempMatrix if needed
// noalias() tells Eigen that no factor on the right aliases with tempMatrix
tempMatrix.noalias() = points * w.asDiagonal() * points.adjoint();
or directly:
Eigen::MatrixXd tempMatrix = points * w.asDiagonal() * points.adjoint();
If M is really big, it can be significantly faster to just compute one side and copy it (if needed):
Eigen::MatrixXd tempMatrix(M,M);
tempMatrix.triangularView<Eigen::Upper>() = points * w.asDiagonal() * points.adjoint();
tempMatrix.triangularView<Eigen::StrictlyLower>() = tempMatrix.adjoint();
Note that .adjoint() is equivalent to .transpose() for non-complex scalars, but with the former the code works as well if points and the result where MatrixXcd instead (w must still be real, if the result must be self-adjoint).
Also, notice that the following (from your original code) does not set all entries to zero:
Eigen::MatrixXd tempMatrix = Eigen::MatrixXd(M,M);
If you want this, you need to write:
Eigen::MatrixXd tempMatrix = Eigen::MatrixXd::Zero(M,M);

From Matlab to C++ Eigen matrix operations - vector normalization

Converting some Matlab code to C++.
Questions (how to in C++):
Concatenate two vectors in a matrix. (already found the solution)
Normalize each array ("pts" col) dividing it by its 3rd value
Matlab code for 1 and 2:
% 1. A 3x1 vector. d0, d1 double.
B = [d0*A (d0+d1)*A]; % B is 3x2
% 2. Normalize a set of 3D points
% Divide each col by its 3rd value
% pts 3xN. C 3xN.
% If N = 1 you can do: C = pts./pts(3); if not:
C = bsxfun(#rdivide, pts, pts(3,:));
C++ code for 1 and 2:
// 1. Found the solution for that one!
B << d0*A, (d0 + d1)*A;
// 2.
for (int i=0, i<N; i++)
{
// Something like this, but Eigen may have a better solution that I don't know.
C.block<3,1>(0,i) = C.block<3,1>(0,i)/C(0,i);
}
Edit:
I hope the question is more clear now².
For #2:
C = C.array().rowwise() / C.row(2).array();
Only arrays have multiplication and division operators defined for row and column partial reductions. The array converts back to a matrix when you assign it back into C

Suggestions to Compute the Intersetions of Multiple Convex 2D Polygons

I am writing this question fishing for any state-of-the-art software or methods that can quickly compute the intersection of N 2D polygons (the convex hulls of projected convex polyhedrons), and M 2D polygons where typically N >> M. N may be in the order or at least 1M polygons and N in the order 50k. I've searched for some time now, but I keep coming up with the same answer shown below.
Use boost and a loop to
compute the projection of the polyhedron (not the bottleneck)
compute the convex hull of said polyhedron (bottleneck)
compute the intersection of the projected polyhedron and existing 2D polygon (major bottleneck).
This loop is repeated NK times where typically K << M, and K is the average number of 2D polygons intersecting a single projected polyhedron. This is done to reduce the number of computations.
The problem with this is that if I have N=262144 and M=19456 it takes about 129 seconds (when multithreaded by polyhedron), and this must be done about 300 times. Ideally, I would like to reduce the computation time to about 1 second for the above sizes, so I was wondering if someone could help point to some software or literature that could improve efficiency.
[EDIT]
#sehe's request I'm posting the most relevant parts of the code. I haven't compiled it, so this is just to get the gist... this code assumes, there are voxels and pixels, but the shapes can be anything. The order of the points in the grid can be any, but the indices of where the points reside in the grid are the same.
#include <boost/geometry/geometry.hpp>
#include <boost/geometry/geometries/point.hpp>
#include <boost/geometry/geometries/ring.hpp>
const std::size_t Dimension = 2;
typedef boost::geometry::model::point<float, Dimension, boost::geometry::cs::cartesian> point_2d;
typedef boost::geometry::model::polygon<point_2d, false /* is cw */, true /* closed */> polygon_2d;
typedef boost::geometry::model::box<point_2d> box_2d;
std::vector<float> getOverlaps(std::vector<float> & projected_grid_vx, // projected voxels
std::vector<float> & pixel_grid_vx, // pixels
std::vector<int> & projected_grid_m, // number of voxels in each dimension
std::vector<int> & pixel_grid_m, // number of pixels in each dimension
std::vector<float> & pixel_grid_omega, // size of the pixel grid in cm
int projected_grid_size, // total number of voxels
int pixel_grid_size) { // total number of pixels
std::vector<float> overlaps(projected_grid_size * pixel_grid_size);
std::vector<float> h(pixel_grid_m.size());
for(int d=0; d < pixel_grid_m.size(); d++) {
h[d] = (pixel_grid_omega[2*d+1] - pixel_grid_omega[2*d]) / pixel_grid_m[d];
}
for(int i=0; i < projected_grid_size; i++){
std::vector<float> point_indices(8);
point_indices[0] = i;
point_indices[1] = i + 1;
point_indices[2] = i + projected_grid_m[0];
point_indices[3] = i + projected_grid_m[0] + 1;
point_indices[4] = i + projected_grid_m[0] * projected_grid_m[1];
point_indices[5] = i + projected_grid_m[0] * projected_grid_m[1] + 1;
point_indices[6] = i + (projected_grid_m[1] + 1) * projected_grid_m[0];
point_indices[7] = i + (projected_grid_m[1] + 1) * projected_grid_m[0] + 1;
std::vector<float> vx_corners(8 * projected_grid_m.size());
for(int vn = 0; vn < 8; vn++) {
for(int d = 0; d < projected_grid_m.size(); d++) {
vx_corners[vn + d * 8] = projected_grid_vx[point_indices[vn] + d * projeted_grid_size];
}
}
polygon_2d proj_voxel;
for(int vn = 0; vn < 8; vn++) {
point_2d poly_pt(vx_corners[2 * vn], vx_corners[2 * vn + 1]);
boost::geometry::append(proj_voxel, poly_pt);
}
boost::geometry::correct(proj_voxel);
polygon_2d proj_voxel_hull;
boost::geometry::convex_hull(proj_voxel, proj_voxel_hull);
box_2d bb_proj_vox;
boost::geometry::envelope(proj_voxel_hull, bb_proj_vox);
point_2d min_pt = bb_proj_vox.min_corner();
point_2d max_pt = bb_proj_vox.max_corner();
// then get min and max indices of intersecting bins
std::vector<float> min_idx(projected_grid_m.size() - 1),
max_idx(projected_grid_m.size() - 1);
// compute min and max indices of incidence on the pixel grid
// this is easy assuming you have a regular grid of pixels
min_idx[0] = std::min( (float) std::max( std::floor((min_pt.get<0>() - pixel_grid_omega[0]) / h[0] - 0.5 ), 0.), pixel_grid_m[0]-1);
min_idx[1] = std::min( (float) std::max( std::floor((min_pt.get<1>() - pixel_grid_omega[2]) / h[1] - 0.5 ), 0.), pixel_grid_m[1]-1);
max_idx[0] = std::min( (float) std::max( std::floor((max_pt.get<0>() - pixel_grid_omega[0]) / h[0] + 0.5 ), 0.), pixel_grid__m[0]-1);
max_idx[1] = std::min( (float) std::max( std::floor((max_pt.get<1>() - pixel_grid_omega[2]) / h[1] + 0.5 ), 0.), pixel_grid_m[1]-1);
// iterate only over pixels which intersect the projected voxel
for(int iy = min_idx[1]; iy <= max_idx[1]; iy++) {
for(int ix = min_idx[0]; ix <= max_idx[0]; ix++) {
int idx = ix + iy * pixel_grid_size[0]; // `first' index of pixel corner point
polygon_2d pix_poly;
for(int pn = 0; pn < 4; pn++) {
point_2d pix_corner_pt(
pixel_grid_vx[idx + pn % 2 + (pn / 2) * pixel_grid_m[0]],
pixel_grid_vx[idx + pn % 2 + (pn / 2) * pixel_grid_m[0] + pixel_grid_size]
);
boost::geometry::append(pix_poly, pix_corner_pt);
}
boost::geometry::correct( pix_poly );
//make this into a convex hull since the order of the point may be any
polygon_2d pix_hull;
boost::geometry::convex_hull(pix_poly, pix_hull);
// on to perform intersection
std::vector<polygon_2d> vox_pix_ints;
polygon_2d vox_pix_int;
try {
boost::geometry::intersection(proj_voxel_hull, pix_hull, vox_pix_ints);
} catch ( std::exception e ) {
// skip since these may coincide at a point or line
continue;
}
// both are convex so only one intersection expected
vox_pix_int = vox_pix_ints[0];
overlaps[i + idx * projected_grid_size] = boost::geometry::area(vox_pix_int);
}
} // end intersection for
} //end projected_voxel for
return overlaps;
}
You could create the ratio of polygon to bounding box:
This could be done computationally once to arrive at an avgerage poly area to BB ratio R constant.
Or you could do it with geometry using a circle bounded by its BB Since your using only projected polyhedron:
R = 0.0;
count = 0;
for (each poly) {
count++;
R += polyArea / itsBoundingBoxArea;
}
R = R/count;
Then calculate the summation of intersection of bounding boxes.
Sbb = 0.0;
for (box1, box2 where box1.isIntersecting(box2)) {
Sbb += box1.intersect(box2);
}
Then:
Approximation = R * Sbb
All of this would not work if concave polys were allowed. Because a concave poly can occupy less than 1% of it's bounding box. You will still have to find the convex hull.
Alternatively, If you can find the polygons area quicker than its hull, you could use the actual computed average poly area. This would give you a decent approximation as well while avoiding both poly intersection and wrapping.
Hm, the problem seems similar to doing "collision-detection" i game-engines. Or "potentially visible sets".
While I don't know much about the current state-of-the-art, i remember an optimization was to enclose objects in spheres, since checking overlaps between spheres (or circles in 2D) is really cheap.
In order to speed-up checks for collisions, objects were often put into search-structures (e.g. a sphere-tree (circle-tree in 2D case)). Basically organizing the space into a hierarchical structure, to make queries for overlaps fast.
So basically my suggestion boils down to: Try looking at algorithms for collision-detection i game-engines.
Assumption
I'm assuming that you mean "intersections" and not intersection. Moreover, It is not the expected use case that most of the individual polys from M and N will overlap at the same time. If this assumption is true then:
Answer
The way this is done with 2D game engines is by having a scene graph where every object has a bounding box. Then place all the the polygons into a node in an quadtree according to their location determined by bounding box. Then the task becomes parallel because each node can be processed separately for intersection.
Here is the wiki for quadtree:
Quadtree Wiki
An octree could be used when in 3D.
It actually doesn't even have to be a octree. You could get the same results with any space partition. You could find the maximum separation of polys (lets call it S). And create say S/10 space partitions. Then you would have 10 separate spaces to execute in parallel. Not only would it be concurrent, but It would no longer be M * N time since not every poly must be compared against every other poly.

How to compute sum of evenly spaced binomial coefficients

How to find sum of evenly spaced Binomial coefficients modulo M?
ie. (nCa + nCa+r + nCa+2r + nCa+3r + ... + nCa+kr) % M = ?
given: 0 <= a < r, a + kr <= n < a + (k+1)r, n < 105, r < 100
My first attempt was:
int res = 0;
int mod=1000000009;
for (int k = 0; a + r*k <= n; k++) {
res = (res + mod_nCr(n, a+r*k, mod)) % mod;
}
but this is not efficient. So after reading here
and this paper I found out the above sum is equivalent to:
summation[ω-ja * (1 + ωj)n / r], for 0 <= j < r; and ω = ei2π/r is a primitive rth root of unity.
What can be the code to find this sum in Order(r)?
Edit:
n can go upto 105 and r can go upto 100.
Original problem source: https://www.codechef.com/APRIL14/problems/ANUCBC
Editorial for the problem from the contest: https://discuss.codechef.com/t/anucbc-editorial/5113
After revisiting this post 6 years later, I'm unable to recall how I transformed the original problem statement into mine version, nonetheless, I shared the link to the original solution incase anyone wants to have a look at the correct solution approach.
Binomial coefficients are coefficients of the polynomial (1+x)^n. The sum of the coefficients of x^a, x^(a+r), etc. is the coefficient of x^a in (1+x)^n in the ring of polynomials mod x^r-1. Polynomials mod x^r-1 can be specified by an array of coefficients of length r. You can compute (1+x)^n mod (x^r-1, M) by repeated squaring, reducing mod x^r-1 and mod M at each step. This takes about log_2(n)r^2 steps and O(r) space with naive multiplication. It is faster if you use the Fast Fourier Transform to multiply or exponentiate the polynomials.
For example, suppose n=20 and r=5.
(1+x) = {1,1,0,0,0}
(1+x)^2 = {1,2,1,0,0}
(1+x)^4 = {1,4,6,4,1}
(1+x)^8 = {1,8,28,56,70,56,28,8,1}
{1+56,8+28,28+8,56+1,70}
{57,36,36,57,70}
(1+x)^16 = {3249,4104,5400,9090,13380,9144,8289,7980,4900}
{3249+9144,4104+8289,5400+7980,9090+4900,13380}
{12393,12393,13380,13990,13380}
(1+x)^20 = (1+x)^16 (1+x)^4
= {12393,12393,13380,13990,13380}*{1,4,6,4,1}
{12393,61965,137310,191440,211585,203373,149620,67510,13380}
{215766,211585,204820,204820,211585}
This tells you the sums for the 5 possible values of a. For example, for a=1, 211585 = 20c1+20c6+20c11+20c16 = 20+38760+167960+4845.
Something like that, but you have to check a, n and r because I just put anything without regarding about the condition:
#include <complex>
#include <cmath>
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main( void )
{
const int r = 10;
const int a = 2;
const int n = 4;
complex<double> i(0.,1.), res(0., 0.), w;
for( int j(0); j<r; ++j )
{
w = exp( i * 2. * M_PI / (double)r );
res += pow( w, -j * a ) * pow( 1. + pow( w, j ), n ) / (double)r;
}
return 0;
}
the mod operation is expensive, try avoiding it as much as possible
uint64_t res = 0;
int mod=1000000009;
for (int k = 0; a + r*k <= n; k++) {
res += mod_nCr(n, a+r*k, mod);
if(res > mod)
res %= mod;
}
I did not test this code
I don't know if you reached something or not in this question, but the key to implementing this formula is to actually figure out that w^i are independent and therefore can form a ring. In simpler terms you should think of implement
(1+x)^n%(x^r-1) or finding out (1+x)^n in the ring Z[x]/(x^r-1)
If confused I will give you an easy implementation right now.
make a vector of size r . O(r) space + O(r) time
initialization this vector with zeros every where O(r) space +O(r) time
make the first two elements of that vector 1 O(1)
calculate (x+1)^n using the fast exponentiation method. each multiplication takes O(r^2) and there are log n multiplications therefore O(r^2 log(n) )
return first element of the vector.O(1)
Complexity
O(r^2 log(n) ) time and O(r) space.
this r^2 can be reduced to r log(r) using fourier transform.
How is the multiplication done, this is regular polynomial multiplication with mod in the power
vector p1(r,0);
vector p2(r,0);
p1[0]=p1[1]=1;
p2[0]=p2[1]=1;
now we want to do the multiplication
vector res(r,0);
for(int i=0;i<r;i++)
{
for(int j=0;j<r;j++)
{
res[(i+j)%r]+=(p1[i]*p2[j]);
}
}
return res[0];
I have implemented this part before, if you are still cofused about something let me know. I would prefer that you implement the code yourself, but if you need the code let me know.

How to fit the 2D scatter data with a line with C++

I used to work with MATLAB, and for the question I raised I can use p = polyfit(x,y,1) to estimate the best fit line for the scatter data in a plate. I was wondering which resources I can rely on to implement the line fitting algorithm with C++. I understand there are a lot of algorithms for this subject, and for me I expect the algorithm should be fast and meantime it can obtain the comparable accuracy of polyfit function in MATLAB.
This page describes the algorithm easier than Wikipedia, without extra steps to calculate the means etc. : http://faculty.cs.niu.edu/~hutchins/csci230/best-fit.htm . Almost quoted from there, in C++ it's:
#include <vector>
#include <cmath>
struct Point {
double _x, _y;
};
struct Line {
double _slope, _yInt;
double getYforX(double x) {
return _slope*x + _yInt;
}
// Construct line from points
bool fitPoints(const std::vector<Point> &pts) {
int nPoints = pts.size();
if( nPoints < 2 ) {
// Fail: infinitely many lines passing through this single point
return false;
}
double sumX=0, sumY=0, sumXY=0, sumX2=0;
for(int i=0; i<nPoints; i++) {
sumX += pts[i]._x;
sumY += pts[i]._y;
sumXY += pts[i]._x * pts[i]._y;
sumX2 += pts[i]._x * pts[i]._x;
}
double xMean = sumX / nPoints;
double yMean = sumY / nPoints;
double denominator = sumX2 - sumX * xMean;
// You can tune the eps (1e-7) below for your specific task
if( std::fabs(denominator) < 1e-7 ) {
// Fail: it seems a vertical line
return false;
}
_slope = (sumXY - sumX * yMean) / denominator;
_yInt = yMean - _slope * xMean;
return true;
}
};
Please, be aware that both this algorithm and the algorithm from Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_linear_regression#Fitting_the_regression_line ) fail in case the "best" description of points is a vertical line. They fail because they use
y = k*x + b
line equation which intrinsically is not capable to describe vertical lines. If you want to cover also the cases when data points are "best" described by vertical lines, you need a line fitting algorithm which uses
A*x + B*y + C = 0
line equation. You can still modify the current algorithm to produce that equation:
y = k*x + b <=>
y - k*x - b = 0 <=>
B=1, A=-k, C=-b
In terms of the above code:
B=1, A=-_slope, C=-_yInt
And in "then" block of the if checking for denominator equal to 0, instead of // Fail: it seems a vertical line, produce the following line equation:
x = xMean <=>
x - xMean = 0 <=>
A=1, B=0, C=-xMean
I've just noticed that the original article I was referring to has been deleted. And this web page proposes a little different formula for line fitting: http://hotmath.com/hotmath_help/topics/line-of-best-fit.html
double denominator = sumX2 - 2 * sumX * xMean + nPoints * xMean * xMean;
...
_slope = (sumXY - sumY*xMean - sumX * yMean + nPoints * xMean * yMean) / denominator;
The formulas are identical because nPoints*xMean == sumX and nPoints*xMean*yMean == sumX * yMean == sumY * xMean.
I would suggest coding it from scratch. It is a very simple implementation in C++. You can code up both the intercept and gradient for least-squares fit (the same method as polyfit) from your data directly from the formulas here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_linear_regression#Fitting_the_regression_line
These are closed form formulas that you can easily evaluate yourself using loops. If you were using higher degree fits then I would suggest a matrix library or more sophisticated algorithms but for simple linear regression as you describe above this is all you need. Matrices and linear algebra routines would be overkill for such a problem (in my opinion).
Equation of line is Ax + By + C=0.
So it can be easily( when B is not so close to zero ) convert to y = (-A/B)*x + (-C/B)
typedef double scalar_type;
typedef std::array< scalar_type, 2 > point_type;
typedef std::vector< point_type > cloud_type;
bool fit( scalar_type & A, scalar_type & B, scalar_type & C, cloud_type const& cloud )
{
if( cloud.size() < 2 ){ return false; }
scalar_type X=0, Y=0, XY=0, X2=0, Y2=0;
for( auto const& point: cloud )
{ // Do all calculation symmetric regarding X and Y
X += point[0];
Y += point[1];
XY += point[0] * point[1];
X2 += point[0] * point[0];
Y2 += point[1] * point[1];
}
X /= cloud.size();
Y /= cloud.size();
XY /= cloud.size();
X2 /= cloud.size();
Y2 /= cloud.size();
A = - ( XY - X * Y ); //!< Common for both solution
scalar_type Bx = X2 - X * X;
scalar_type By = Y2 - Y * Y;
if( fabs( Bx ) < fabs( By ) ) //!< Test verticality/horizontality
{ // Line is more Vertical.
B = By;
std::swap(A,B);
}
else
{ // Line is more Horizontal.
// Classical solution, when we expect more horizontal-like line
B = Bx;
}
C = - ( A * X + B * Y );
//Optional normalization:
// scalar_type D = sqrt( A*A + B*B );
// A /= D;
// B /= D;
// C /= D;
return true;
}
You can also use or go over this implementation there is also documentation here.
Fitting a Line can be acomplished in different ways.
Least Square means minimizing the sum of the squared distance.
But you could take another cost function as example the (not squared) distance. But normaly you use the squred distance (Least Square).
There is also a possibility to define the distance in different ways. Normaly you just use the "y"-axis for the distance. But you could also use the total/orthogonal distance. There the distance is calculated in x- and y-direction. This can be a better fit if you have also errors in x direction (let it be the time of measurment) and you didn't start the measurment on the exact time you saved in the data. For Least Square and Total Least Square Line fit exist algorithms in closed form. So if you fitted with one of those you will get the line with the minimal sum of the squared distance to the datapoints. You can't fit a better line in the sence of your defenition. You could just change the definition as examples taking another cost function or defining distance in another way.
There is a lot of stuff about fitting models into data you could think of, but normaly they all use the "Least Square Line Fit" and you should be fine most times. But if you have a special case it can be necessary to think about what your doing. Taking Least Square done in maybe a few minutes. Thinking about what Method fits you best to the problem envolves understanding the math, which can take indefinit time :-).
Note: This answer is NOT AN ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION but to this one "Line closest to a set of points" that has been flagged as "duplicate" of this one (incorrectly in my opinion), no way to add new answers to it.
The question asks for:
Find the line whose distance from all the points is minimum ? By
distance I mean the shortest distance between the point and the line.
The most usual interpretation of distance "between the point and the line" is the euclidean distance and the most common interpretation of "from all points" is the sum of distances (in absolute or squared value).
When the target is minimize the sum of squared euclidean distances, the linear regression (LST) is not the algorithm to use. In addition, linear regression can not result in a vertical line. The algorithm to be used is the "total least squares". See by example wikipedia for the problem description and this answer in math stack exchange for details about the formulation.
to fit a line y=param[0]x+param[1] simply do this:
// loop over data:
{
sum_x += x[i];
sum_y += y[i];
sum_xy += x[i] * y[i];
sum_x2 += x[i] * x[i];
}
// means
double mean_x = sum_x / ninliers;
double mean_y = sum_y / ninliers;
float varx = sum_x2 - sum_x * mean_x;
float cov = sum_xy - sum_x * mean_y;
// check for zero varx
param[0] = cov / varx;
param[1] = mean_y - param[0] * mean_x;
More on the topic http://easycalculation.com/statistics/learn-regression.php
(formulas are the same, they just multiplied and divided by N, a sample sz.). If you want to fit plane to 3D data use a similar approach -
http://www.mymathforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=8793
Disclaimer: all quadratic fits are linear and optimal in a sense that they reduce the noise in parameters. However, you might interested in the reducing noise in the data instead. You might also want to ignore outliers since they can bia s your solutions greatly. Both problems can be solved with RANSAC. See my post at: