Given 2 point in a 2D plane, how many lattice points lie within these two point?
For example, for A (3, 3) and B (-1, -1) the output is 5. The points are: (-1, -1), (0, 0), (1, 1), (2, 2) and (3, 3).
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Given 2 point in a 2D plane, how many lattice points lie within these two point?
For example, for A (3, 3) and B (-1, -1) the output is 5. The points are: (-1, -1), (0, 0), (1, 1), (2, 2) and (3, 3).
Apparently by “lattice points lie within two points” you mean (letting LP stand for lattice point) the LP’s on the line between two points (A and B).
The equation of line AB is y = m*x + b for some slope and intercept numbers m and b. For cases of interest, we can assume m, b are rational, because if either is irrational there is at most 1 LP on AB. (Proof: If 2 or more LP’s are on line, it has rational slope, say e/d, with d,e integers; then y=b+x*e/d so at LP (X,Y) on line, d*b = d*Y-X*e, which is an integer, hence b is rational.)
In following, we suppose A = (u,v) and B = (w,z), with u,w and v,z having rational differences, and typically write y = mx+b with m=e/d and b=g/f.
Case 1. A, B both are LP’s: Let q = gcd(u-w,v-z); take d = (u-w)/q and e = (v-z)/q and it’s easily seen that there are q+1 lattice points on AB.
Case 2a. A is an LP, B isn’t: If u-w = h/i and v-z = j/k
then m = j*i/(h*k). Let q = gcd(j*i,h*k), d = h*k/q, e=j*i/q, w’ = u + d*floor((w-u)/d) and similarly for z’, then solve (u,v),(w’,z’) as in case 1. For case 2b swap A and B.
Case 3. Neither A nor B is an LP: After finding an LP C on the extended line through A,B, use arithmetic like in Case 2 to find LP A’ inside line segment AB and apply case 2. To find A’, if m = e/d, b = g/f, note that f*d*y = d*g + e*f*x is of the form p*x + q*y = r, a simple Diophantine equation that is solvable for C=(x,y) iff gcd(p,q) divides r.
Complexity: gcd(m,n) is O(ln(min(m,n)) so algorithm complexity is typically O(ln(Dx)) or O(ln(Dy)) if A,B are separated by x,y distances Dx,Dy.