Downscale array for decimal factor - c++

Question

Is there efficient way to downscale number of elements in array by decimal factor?
I want to downsize elements from one array by certain factor.
Example:
If I have 10 elements and need to scale down by factor 2.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
scaled to
1.5 3.5 5.5 7.5 9.5
Grouping 2 by 2 and use arithmetic mean.
My problem is what if I need to downsize array with 10 elements to 6 elements? In theory I should group 1.6 elements and find their arithmetic mean, but how to do that?

Answer 1

Before suggesting a solution, let's define "downsize" in a more formal way. I would suggest this definition:
Downsizing starts with an array a[N] and produces an array b[M] such that the following is true:
M <= N - otherwise it would be upsizing, not downsizing
SUM(b) = (M/N) * SUM(a) - The sum is reduced proportionally to the number of elements
Elements of a participate in computation of b in the order of their occurrence in a
Let's consider your example of downsizing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 to six elements. The total for your array is 55, so the total for the new array would be (6/10)*55 = 33. We can achieve this total in two steps:
Walk the array a totaling its elements until we've reached the integer part of N/M fraction (it must be an improper fraction by rule 1 above)
Let's say that a[i] was the last element of a that we could take as a whole in the current iteration. Take the fraction of a[i+1] equal to the fractional part of N/M
Continue to the next number starting with the remaining fraction of a[i+1]
Once you are done, your array b would contain M numbers totaling to SUM(a). Walk the array once more, and scale the result by N/M.
Here is how it works with your example:
b[0] = a[0] + (2/3)*a[1] = 2.33333
b[1] = (1/3)*a[1] + a[2] + (1/3)*a[3] = 5
b[2] = (2/3)*a[3] + a[4] = 7.66666
b[3] = a[5] + (2/3)*a[6] = 10.6666
b[4] = (1/3)*a[6] + a[7] + (1/3)*a[8] = 13.3333
b[5] = (2/3)*a[8] + a[9] = 16
--------
Total = 55
Scaling down by 6/10 produces the final result:
1.4 3 4.6 6.4 8 9.6 (Total = 33)
Here is a simple implementation in C++:
double need = ((double)a.size()) / b.size();
double have = 0;
size_t pos = 0;
for (size_t i = 0 ; i != a.size() ; i++) {
if (need >= have+1) {
b[pos] += a[i];
have++;
} else {
double frac = (need-have); // frac is less than 1 because of the "if" condition
b[pos++] += frac * a[i]; // frac of a[i] goes to current element of b
have = 1 - frac;
b[pos] += have * a[i]; // (1-frac) of a[i] goes to the next position of b
}
}
for (size_t i = 0 ; i != b.size() ; i++) {
b[i] /= need;
}
Demo.

Answer 2

You will need to resort to some form of interpolation, as the number of elements to average isn't integer.
You can consider computing the prefix sum of the array, i.e.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
yields by summation
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 3 6 10 15 21 28 36 45 55
Then perform linear interpolation to get the intermediate values that you are lacking, like at 0*, 10/6, 20/6, 30/5*, 40/6, 50/6, 60/6*. (Those with an asterisk are readily available).
0 1 10/6 2 3 20/6 4 5 6 40/6 7 8 50/6 9
1 3 15/3 6 10 35/3 15 21 28 100/3 36 45 145/3 55
Now you get fractional sums by subtracting values in pairs. The first average is
(15/3-1)/(10/6) = 12/5

Answer 3

I can't think of anything in the C++ library that will crank out something like this, all fully cooked and ready to go.
So you'll have to, pretty much, roll up your sleeves and go to work. At this point, the question of what's the "efficient" way of doing it boils down to its very basics. Which means:
1) Calculate how big the output array should be. Based on the description of the issue, you should be able to make that calculation even before looking at the values in the input array. You know the input array's size(), you can calculate the size() of the destination array.
2) So, you resize() the destination array up front. Now, you no longer need to worry about the time wasted in growing the size of the dynamic output array, incrementally, as you go through the input array, making your calculations.
3) So what's left is the actual work: iterating over the input array, and calculating the downsized values.
auto b=input_array.begin();
auto e=input_array.end();
auto p=output_array.begin();
Don't see many other options here, besides brute force iteration and calculations. Iterate from b to e, getting your samples, calculating each downsized value, and saving the resulting value into *p++.