MATLAB: How to calculate distance between array elements

accumulate the distance

Hi, Let say I have this array:
A = [1 3 5 1 4 1 2 6 1]
the distances between elements are:
1-3-5-1:
1 to 3 = 2
3 to 5 = 1
5 to 1 = 3
1-4-1:
1 to 4 = 2
4 to 1 = 1
1-2-6-1:
1 to 2 = 3
2 to 6 = 1
6 to 1 = 2
what I need is to accumulate the distance of elements between every two ones, and if the distance between every two ones is greater than 5 then a penalty of 3 should be added to the total distance of the whole array. For example the distance between 1-3-5-1 = 6, so in this case, a penalty of 3 should be added to the total distance and so on.

Best Answer

I too find the post hard to interpret, but maybe this is what you want:
    A =  [1 3 5 1 4 1 2 6 1];
    dist=cumsum([0 2 1 3 2 1 3 1 2]); %distances from start
    onelocs=find(A==1);
    D=dist(onelocs(2:end)) - dist(onelocs(1:end-1)); %distance between ones
    totalDistance=dist(end) + 3*sum(D>5)
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