So let\'s say I have a list of N pairs of positive long coordinates (points).
How do I find the smallest rectangle containing all of them?
The rectangle can also have fl
See http://www.geometrictools.com/Source/ComputationalGeometry.html
The section "Minimum-area box" has various examples.
I don't know if this would be of help to you, but here's my thoughts on how I'd approach the problem.
You'll need functions to find your "corner-most" points (in your example, the left 2 and right 2 points). Given those 4 points, connect them with lines.
(Note in your example image, the top point would not be contained by the generated rectangle, so...) You'll then need a function to determine if the rectangle generated contains all given points; if not, extend the endpoints (in this case, the top 2 points of the generated rectangle) by N (which is either a single measure ... say a pixel, or if you're smart, the distance to the point that's out of bounds plus/minus one dependant on the direction) and re-evaluate.
Maybe this paper can help: Smallest k point enclosing rectangle of arbitrary orientation
This wikipedia page notes that you can solve this problem by using the fact that the minimum rectangle must have an edge collinear with one of the edges of the convex hull.