Growbubbles - maximum radius packing

Growbubbles takes centroid points and returns the maximum radius circles or spheres without overlap

Description

%GROWBUBBLES packs maximum radius circles at given central locations
%
% PTRADS = GROWBUBBLES(PTS) returns the radius of circles at coordinates in PTS with all radii
% maximised but without any circles overlapping. PTS is a P-by-N matrix of P "N-dimensional"
% points.
%
% If no output argument is given, PTSIN will be plotted as circles (2D) or spheres (3D) to the
% current figure.
%
% Example:
%
% % Find the maximum packed radius of 20 random points
% x = rand(20, 2);
% ptRads = growbubbles(x);

• MATLAB release: MATLAB 7.13 (2011b)

[Yuri]

Your program looks very interesting, but when I run it, I got the error message:

??? Error: File: growbubbles.m
Line: 42 Column: 7
Expression or statement is incorrect--possibly unbalanced (, {, or [.

for which versions did you test it?

[Sven]

Ah... that's the tricky little tilde (~) operator. It was introduced in version 2009b. If you use an earlier version, just change the line:

[~,idx] = min(openPtMinGap);

into:

[dummyVariable,idx] = min(openPtMinGap);

and it should run just fine.

[Yuri]

Thanks! Now it works!

[Yuri]

Well well well, but why some spheres have no contact with others? Even in your plot we see this.

[Yuri]

Ok, I red the code and found answer: the code is fast, simple, but... can not produces "connected media". It's a pity

[Sven]

Yes Yuri, this entry grows bubbles with a *known* center. To make all bubbles grow more would require that they *break* this constraint. I get 3 stars because it doesn't solve a different problem entirely? Ouch! :)

[Sven]

What would you do in the following instances:

1. You only have two circles. (If their centers moved, they would grow to infinity)

2. You have many circles. (All the outside circles would grow very close to infinity)