Distance matrix computation in SciPy - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Distance matrix computation

📖 Scenario: You work as a data analyst for a delivery company. You have a list of locations represented by their coordinates. Your task is to calculate the distances between each pair of locations to help plan efficient delivery routes.

🎯 Goal: Build a program that computes the distance matrix between multiple points using the scipy library.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a list of points with exact coordinates

Set up a variable to specify the distance metric

Use scipy.spatial.distance_matrix to compute the distance matrix

Print the resulting distance matrix

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Delivery companies and logistics planners use distance matrices to find the shortest routes and optimize travel times.

💼 Career

Data analysts and data scientists often compute distance matrices when working with geographic data or clustering tasks.

1

Create the list of points

Create a variable called points that is a list containing these exact coordinate pairs: [0, 0], [3, 4], and [6, 8].

SciPy

# Create the list of points with exact coordinates
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a list of lists to represent the points. Each inner list is a coordinate pair.

2

Set the distance metric

Create a variable called metric and set it to the string 'euclidean' to specify the distance type.

SciPy

points = [[0, 0], [3, 4], [6, 8]]
# Set the distance metric to 'euclidean'
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The metric variable is a string that tells the function which distance formula to use.

3

Compute the distance matrix

Import distance_matrix from scipy.spatial. Then create a variable called dist_matrix that stores the distance matrix computed by calling distance_matrix(points, points).

SciPy

points = [[0, 0], [3, 4], [6, 8]]
metric = 'euclidean'
# Import distance_matrix and compute the distance matrix
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use from scipy.spatial import distance_matrix to import the function.

4

Print the distance matrix

Write a print statement to display the variable dist_matrix.

SciPy

from scipy.spatial import distance_matrix

points = [[0, 0], [3, 4], [6, 8]]
metric = 'euclidean'
dist_matrix = distance_matrix(points, points)
# Print the distance matrix
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The printed matrix shows distances between each pair of points.