calculating distance between a point and a rectangular box (nearest point)

Question

is there a easy formula to calculate this? i\'ve been working on some math but i can only find a way to calculate the distance directed to the center of the box, not direct

Answer 1

Lightly optimized C# alternative (although there should probably be some tolerance when comparing doubles against 0). I also recommend creating some kind of Rect or Point extension methods for these.

public static class GeometryUtils
{
    public static double Distance(Point point, Rect rect)
    {
        var xDist = MinXDistance(point, rect);
        var yDist = MinYDistance(point, rect);
        if (xDist == 0)
        {
            return yDist;
        }
        else if (yDist == 0)
        {
            return xDist;
        }

        return Math.Sqrt(Math.Pow(xDist, 2) + Math.Pow(yDist, 2));
    }

    private static double MinXDistance(Point point, Rect rect)
    {
        if (rect.Left > point.X)
        {
            return rect.Left - point.X;
        }
        else if (rect.Right < point.X)
        {
            return point.X - rect.Right;
        }
        else
        {
            return 0;
        }
    }

    private static double MinYDistance(Point point, Rect rect)
    {
        if (rect.Bottom < point.Y)
        {
            return point.Y - rect.Bottom;
        }
        else if (rect.Top > point.Y)
        {
            return rect.Top - point.Y;
        }
        else
        {
            return 0;
        }
    }
}