Given the location (coordinates) of a point in a gridmesh, how can I extract the number of the grid that the point is located in?

I have an issue where I want to assign points to a specific grid number in a 2D gridmesh. For example, let's say I have a square divided into 4 grids: 1,2,3 and 4.

Now, if I know the coordinates of a point (x,y), I want to find out in which of these 4 grids (or quadrants) the point is located at, and extract the number of that grid.

For example, lets say I have a square with side lengths 1, divided into 4 equally large grids numbered 1,2,3 and 4 from left to right (the way you would read a book).

Each grid will then have sides of length 0.5. Then, a point with coordinates (0.75,0.75) would clearly exist in grid nr 2 assuming we use a standard x-y coordinate system with Origin at the bottom left corner of the square. How can I extract this grid number (4) in matlab?

Thanks in advance!

Best regards, Arian

Answer 1

[Kelly Kearney]

You can use the discretize function to bin points:

nx = 2;
ny = 2;

xedge = linspace(0,1,nx+1);
yedge = linspace(0,1,ny+1);

xpt = 0.75;
ypt = 0.75;

xbin = discretize(xpt, xedge);  % which column?
ybin = discretize(ypt, yedge);  % which row?

idx = sub2ind([ny, nx], ybin, xbin); % traslate row/column to index

[Arian Abedin]

Thanks for your response! It seemed to work with the example I first gave. However, when I try something else (9 grids in a square with side lengths 2.4 for example) I dont seem to get the correct result.

     nx = 3;
     ny = 3;

     xedge = linspace(0,2.4,nx+1);
     yedge = linspace(0,2.4,ny+1);

     xpt = 1.8;
     ypt = 1.65;

     xbin = discretize(xpt, xedge)  % which column?
     ybin = discretize(ypt, yedge)  % which row?

     idx = sub2ind([ny, nx], ybin, xbin) % traslate row/column to index

This should give me the answer "3", since the point (1.8,1.65) is located inside grid nr 3 if we take the viewpoint of numbering the grids from left to right (like reading a text).

[Arian Abedin]

I realise now I did not explain very well! The grids are numbered from top to bottom and from left to right (like reading a text). I apologize for not explaining thoroughly, seems like the code does work. Thanks alot :)

[Kelly Kearney]

You can adjust the above example by flipping the y-coordinates for the y-bin calculation (so row 1 corresponds to the highest y value) and flip-flopping the x and y coordinates in the sub2ind call (so the matrix is traversed row-wise instead of column-wise:

nx = 3;
ny = 3;
side = 2.4;
xedge = linspace(0,side,nx+1);
yedge = linspace(0,side,ny+1);
xpt = 1.8;
ypt = 1.65;

xbin = discretize(xpt, xedge);  % which column?
ybin = discretize(-ypt, -yedge(end:-1:1));  % which row?

idx = sub2ind([nx, ny], xbin, ybin) % translate row/column to index