Ramer-Douglas-Peucker line filtering algorithm in JavaScript

rdp.js

    function findPerpendicularDistance(point, line) {
        var pointX = point[0],
            pointY = point[1],
            lineStart = {
                x: line[0][0],
                y: line[0][1]
            },
            lineEnd = {
                x: line[1][0],
                y: line[1][1]
            },
            slope = (lineEnd.y - lineStart.y) / (lineEnd.x - lineStart.x),
            intercept = lineStart.y - (slope * lineStart.x),
            result;
        result = Math.abs(slope * pointX - pointY + intercept) / Math.sqrt(Math.pow(slope, 2) + 1);
        return result;
    }

    function douglasPeucker(points, epsilon) {
        var i,
            maxIndex = 0,
            maxDistance = 0,
            perpendicularDistance,
            leftRecursiveResults, rightRecursiveResults,
            filteredPoints;
        // find the point with the maximum distance
        for (i = 2; i < points.length - 1; i++) {
            perpendicularDistance = findPerpendicularDistance(points[i], [points[1], points[points.length - 1]]);
            if (perpendicularDistance > maxDistance) {
                maxIndex = i;
                maxDistance = perpendicularDistance;
            }
        }
        // if max distance is greater than epsilon, recursively simplify
        if (maxDistance >= epsilon) {
            leftRecursiveResults = douglasPeucker(points.slice(1, maxIndex), epsilon);
            rightRecursiveResults = douglasPeucker(points.slice(maxIndex), epsilon);
            filteredPoints = leftRecursiveResults.concat(rightRecursiveResults);
        } else {
            filteredPoints = points;
        }
        return filteredPoints;
    }

Ramer-Douglas-Peucker

Nice! How's this working out for you?

Aware! This is not correct version of algorithm, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramer%E2%80%93Douglas%E2%80%93Peucker_algorithm implementation in Matlab (keep in mind that arrays begin with 1 in matlab) for correct implementation. Lost entire working day fuguring out that this is not Ramer-Douglas-Peucker