in reply to Algorithm: point with N distance of a line between two other points
I think that what you really want is the distance of a point to a segment, and not the distance to a line. Because a line is infinite, and the shortest distance of a point to a line might fall outside your segment.
In the case below, the distance of the point C to the line AB is CP. But P is outside of your segment, and what you really want is CA and not CP.
/ x (B) / / / x (C) x (A) `. / `. / `x / (P) / /
So, you must find the coordinate of P (the distance to the line) then check if P is outside of your segment. If it's outside, then you compute CA and CB and take the shortest.
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