Nearest Neighbors: Given the source set objects in the drawing and a target set of objects in the source / argument box, for each point in the source set finds those points in the target set which are closer to that point than they are to other points in the source set. The neighbors are indicated by a line drawn between them. This is a geometric solver, using straight-line distances, not distances through a network.
This is a general-purpose client - center assignment solver. Suppose we have a number of service centers (the source set) and we also have a collection of customer points (the target set). We would like to assign each customer to the nearest service center. This solver does it automatically: for each service center it finds the "nearest neighbor" from the customer set. It guarantees that no reassignment of a customer to a different service center will reduce the distance between that customer and a service center.
The operator creates lines in the active drawing, which will be selected. It's probably a good idea in most cases to move the lines to a different drawing for better organization.
Farthest Neighbors: The same as above, except that for each point in the source set finds those points in the target set which are farther from that point than they are from any other point in the source set.
This solver is used when two classes of things must be kept far apart. Suppose we own a chain of 500 restaurants that are administered through six regional offices. We have a collection of auditors who work with computerized records only, and thus could be located anywhere; however, we have them located in the various regional offices because from time to time they pitch in with other work. We would like to assign each auditor a group of restaurants that are as far away from his region as possible, so that in the course of ordinary business he or she won’t get too friendly with the restaurant managers they may be auditing.
Using the Farthest Neighbors solver will make this assignment. It guarantees that no reassignment of an audited restaurant to different auditing manager can increase the distance.
If the points involved have data attributes, the created lines will acquire the data in accordance with the transfer rules that have been specified for those data columns.