k-d Tree JavaScript Library

A basic but super fast JavaScript implementation of the k-dimensional tree data structure.

In computer science, a k-d tree (short for k-dimensional tree) is a space-partitioning data structure for organizing points in a k-dimensional space. k-d trees are a useful data structure for several applications, such as searches involving a multidimensional search key (e.g. range searches and nearest neighbor searches). k-d trees are a special case of binary space partitioning trees.

Demos

• Spiders - animated multiple nearest neighbour search
• Google Map - show nearest 20 out of 3000 markers on mouse move
• Colors - search color names based on color space distance
• Mutable - dynamically add and remove nodes

Usage

// Create a new tree from a list of points, a distance function, and a
// list of dimensions.
var tree = new kdTree(points, distance, dimensions);

// Query the nearest *count* neighbours to a point, with an optional
// maximal search distance.
// Result is an array with *count* elements.
// Each element is an array with two components: the searched point and
// the distance to it.
tree.nearest(point, count, [maxDistance]);

// Insert a new point into the tree. Must be consistent with previous
// contents.
tree.insert(point);

// Remove a point from the tree by reference.
tree.remove(point);

// Get an approximation of how unbalanced the tree is.
// The higher this number, the worse query performance will be.
// It indicates how many times worse it is than the optimal tree.
// Minimum is 1. Unreliable for small trees.
tree.balanceFactor();

Example

var points = [
  {x: 1, y: 2},
  {x: 3, y: 4},
  {x: 5, y: 6},
  {x: 7, y: 8}
];

var distance = function(a, b){
  return Math.pow(a.x - b.x, 2) +  Math.pow(a.y - b.y, 2);
}

var tree = new kdTree(points, distance, ["x", "y"]);

var nearest = tree.nearest({ x: 5, y: 5 }, 2);

console.log(nearest);

About

Developed at Ubilabs. Released under the MIT Licence.