Comparing multiple list of coordinates points

[Dar Scott]

On Nov 21, 2006, at 12:49 PM, Alejandro Tejada wrote:

> Which methods could be devised to know which of
> these lists approximates more, as a whole,
> to my base list of coordinates points?

I'm assuming that each variation list has the same number of points  
as the base list and that the corresponding points are in the same  
order.

What comes to my mind is the sum of the squares of the distances.   
The best match is the smallest of that.  This has the advantage that  
there is no square root.  Also, it reminds me of least-squares matching.

You can simply calculate that for all variation lists and see which  
has the smallest.

Or you can use some sort of parallel calculation, advancing on the  
pairs of those variation lists with the least current measure.  The  
first one finished is the winner.

It might be that what you want is actually least-squares matching.   
Look into that.

Dar