How to align multiple datasets but data are not totally identical

Hi, I'm new to Matlab and I have some questions regarding data alignment. I've seen similar questions already, like this one:

https://es.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/429858-how-to-align-multiple-datasets

So in my case I also want to align two datasets but values are not totally similar, so I would like to know if there is a script that allows me to align datasets but adding some relative deviation. For example, I want to align values of 13.0 with values ranging from 12.5 to 13.5 (13.0+-0.5). Is this possible?

Thank you very much in advance

[Image Analyst]

What form are your data in? Like a set of (x,y,z) point coordinates? Did you try a web search for "point set matching"

Google Point set matching

[Rocio Navarro]

My data are in tables of 3 columns. One of the columns have values ranging from 100 to 1000 but they are not identical, they can vary in a 0.05 value and I would like to know how to tell the program that I admit this variation (for example, that I want to consider 100.00 and 100.05 as the same value.

Answer 1

[Abhijit Bhattacharjee]

Without seeing a bit more detailed of an example, it's not easy to recommend the best path forward. But you could consider creating a copy of your data with rounded or binned values that you use for alignment, and then use the aligned indices to recover the original data of the alignment.

Here's a quick example:

% create example arrays to be aligned
idx1 = [1 2 3.05 3.95 5]';
idx2 = [2 3.01 4.03]';

A = array2table([idx1, randn(size(idx1))])

A = 5×2 table
    Var1      Var2  
    ____    ________

       1     -2.4681
       2     0.63173
    3.05      1.2528
    3.95      1.1205
       5    -0.41651

B = array2table([idx2, randn(size(idx2))])

B = 3×2 table
    Var1     Var2  
    ____    _______

       2    -1.0419
    3.01    0.15861
    4.03    -0.7413

% round the arrays
idx1_rounded = round(idx1);
idx2_rounded = round(idx2);

A_rounded = A;
A_rounded.Var1 = idx1_rounded

A_rounded = 5×2 table
    Var1      Var2  
    ____    ________

     1       -2.4681
     2       0.63173
     3        1.2528
     4        1.1205
     5      -0.41651

B_rounded = B;
B_rounded.Var1 = idx2_rounded

B_rounded = 3×2 table
    Var1     Var2  
    ____    _______

     2      -1.0419
     3      0.15861
     4      -0.7413

% align the arrays
result = outerjoin(A_rounded, B_rounded, 'Keys', [1,1])

result = 5×4 table
    Var1_A_rounded    Var2_A_rounded    Var1_B_rounded    Var2_B_rounded
    ______________    ______________    ______________    ______________

          1               -2.4681            NaN                 NaN    
          2               0.63173              2             -1.0419    
          3                1.2528              3             0.15861    
          4                1.1205              4             -0.7413    
          5              -0.41651            NaN                 NaN