Question by gheeler · Apr 03, 2013 at 09:37 AM · vector3 distance geometry

Distance between a point and any point on an object

i presume vector3.distance will just give me the distance between the origin of an object and the point but i need the closest distance between them.. what would be an efficient way of doing this?

thanks

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robertbu · Apr 03, 2013 at 09:47 AM 0

If the object has a collider and a "normal" shape, you can get a pretty good idea by raycasting. I don't know of a perfect solution. Even comparing all the vertices of the mesh has some issues.

gheeler · Apr 03, 2013 at 09:50 AM 0

many objects have obscure shapes so im using mesh colliders on all objects.. checking all verts seems pretty expensive..

save · Apr 03, 2013 at 09:57 AM 0

I've never done this so you'll probably get a better method or explanation from someone else. I'm thinking you should be able to cache all verts and create a lookup table. Iterating through that should be really fast. Something similar to the A* algorithm.

robertbu · Apr 03, 2013 at 10:05 AM 0

I don't know if this gets you any closer:

Collider.ClosestPointOnBounds().

It won't be as accurate as checking the vertices.

gheeler · Apr 03, 2013 at 10:08 AM 0

that seems like it might do what i want. doesnt have to be exact..