distance from given point to given ellipse

Question

I have an ellipse, defined by Center Point, radiusX and radiusY, and I have a Point. I want to find the point on the ellipse that is closest to the given point. In the illustrat

Answer 1

Given an ellipse E in parametric form and a point P

the square of the distance between P and E(t) is

The minimum must satisfy

Using the trigonometric identities

and substituting

yields the following quartic equation:

Here's an example C function that solves the quartic directly and computes sin(t) and cos(t) for the nearest point on the ellipse:

void nearest(double a, double b, double x, double y, double *ecos_ret, double *esin_ret) {
    double ax = fabs(a*x);
    double by = fabs(b*y);
    double r  = b*b - a*a;
    double c, d;
    int switched = 0;

    if (ax <= by) {
        if (by == 0) {
            if (r >= 0) { *ecos_ret = 1; *esin_ret = 0; }
            else        { *ecos_ret = 0; *esin_ret = 1; }
            return;
        }
        c = (ax - r) / by;
        d = (ax + r) / by;
    } else {
        c = (by + r) / ax;
        d = (by - r) / ax;
        switched = 1;
    }

    double cc = c*c;
    double D0 = 12*(c*d + 1);      // *-4
    double D1 = 54*(d*d - cc);     // *4
    double D  = D1*D1 + D0*D0*D0;  // *16

    double St;
    if (D < 0) {
        double t = sqrt(-D0);             // *2
        double phi = acos(D1 / (t*t*t));
        St = 2*t*cos((1.0/3)*phi);        // *2
    } else {
        double Q = cbrt(D1 + sqrt(D));    // *2
        St = Q - D0 / Q;                  // *2
    }

    double p    = 3*cc;                          // *-2
    double SS   = (1.0/3)*(p + St);              // *4
    double S    = sqrt(SS);                      // *2
    double q    = 2*cc*c + 4*d;                  // *2
    double l    = sqrt(p - SS + q / S) - S - c;  // *2
    double ll   = l*l;                           // *4
    double ll4  = ll + 4;                        // *4
    double esin = (4*l)    / ll4;
    double ecos = (4 - ll) / ll4;

    if (switched) {
        double t = esin;
        esin = ecos;
        ecos = t;
    }

    *ecos_ret = copysign(ecos, a*x);
    *esin_ret = copysign(esin, b*y);
}

Try it online!