Rounding Position to Nearest Position in Table

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#1

Hi, I was wondering if there was any way to snap a part to the closest position in a table. I have made a table with a bunch of different positions, and I want to be able to drag the part around and have it always snap to the closest one. I think I could do this with a for loop, rotating through the positions and finding the closest one, but I am not quite sure how it might work. Also, I want this to happen whenever the mouse moves, so maybe there is a simpler solution. Thank you in advance for your help.

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#2

Is there a pattern to the the table? This might be easier to do with math if so.

#3

You can just use a minimum algorithm using the .Magnitude property of the subtraction of the two thingies like so:

local position = --whatever you're snapping

local newPosition = tabl[1]
local min = (tabl[1]-position).Magnitude
for i = 2,#tabl do
    local dist = (tabl[i]-position).Magnitude
    if dist < min then --find the local minimum from index=1 to index=i 
        min = dist
        newPosition = tabl[i]
    end 
end

print(newPosition)

You probably could simplify it but this code I would say is small enough that this is fine

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#4

It’s just a grid, all the positions are 11 studs apart.

#5

If that’s the case, it should be a lot more efficient to do some math and rounding. Does the grid have 0 rotation? If so, it’s as easy as this.

local xGrid = math.round(xPos/11)*11
local yGrid = math.round(yPos/11)*11

I suppose I should also mention that xPos and yPos are the positions on the grid. You might need to subtract the position of a corner of the grid from the mouse position to make this work.

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#6

That is much easier than what I was thinking, just took a bit of tweaking to make it align and not go outside the grid. Thank you for your help.

#7

You can use this formula to push to the nearest multiple(basiclly rounding).

local result = input - (input % 11)

#8

That works great, although I forgot I could just round it. I will use this in the future as well though. Thank you for your help

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#9

One more thing. This is a good example of the XY Problem. Essentially, it’s what happens when you ask a question about how to do something specific, when the issue itself is more broad. For future reference, you will get a lot more out of a question by wording it something like this so that it includes the general problem as well as your specific approach:

I’m trying to align placement of parts to a grid with 11 stud spacing. My current approach is to store the points in a table, and my issue with that is working out an efficient way to find the closest point in the table.

This way, I can just tell you the best ways I know of to align things to a grid. Or, if I think you’re on the right track, I can help with the table issue. The more people who learn to ask questions which satisfy the XY Problem, the better.

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