Interval Map

January 21, 2018

Many programs require a mathematical function capable of mapping an interval of numbers linearly onto another interval. A $\mathit{map}$ function maps one interval linearly onto another.

\mathit{map}(x):[a,b]\to[c,d] \\ \mathit{map}(x) = \frac{d - c}{b - a}(x - a) + c

Example

The interval $[0, 10]$ can be mapped to $[0, 100]$ using $\mathit{map}$ .

\begin{aligned} \mathit{map}(x) & = 10x \\ \\ \mathit{map}(0) & = 0 \\ \mathit{map}(10) & = 100 \end{aligned}

Derivation

The $\mathit{map}$ function can be thought of as a linear function that passes through the points $(a,c)$ and $(b,d)$ . This means that the function should map $a$ to $c$ and $b$ to $d$ .

\begin{aligned} \mathit{map}(a) & = c \\ \mathit{map}(b) & = d \end{aligned}

With two points the slope can be obtained and the function can be written and simplified.

\begin{aligned} \mathit{map}(x) - c & = \frac{d - c}{b - a}(x - a) \\ \mathit{map}(x) & = \frac{d - c}{b - a}(x - a) + c \end{aligned}

The function can be verified to ensure a correct mapping of $a$ to $c$ .

\begin{aligned} \mathit{map}(a) &= \frac{d - c}{b - a}(a - a) + c \\ \mathit{map}(a) &= c \end{aligned}

The same can be done to ensure $b$ maps to $d$ .

\begin{aligned} \mathit{map}(b) &= \frac{d - c}{b - a}(b - a) + c \\ \mathit{map}(b) &= d - c + c \\ \mathit{map}(b) &= d \end{aligned}