Signed distance

Have you ever played a game of tag with your friends where you had to stay away from them, but not too far away? That's kind of like what signed distance is.

Imagine you and your friend are standing on opposite sides of a line on the ground. If you step over the line and touch the ground on your friend's side, you are considered "tagged" and out of the game. But if you step just close enough to the line without crossing it, you are still safe and can keep playing.

Signed distance works a bit like that game of tag. It's a way to measure how far away something is from a certain point, but it takes into account which side of the point it's on.

Let's say you're standing in the middle of a football field, and your friend is standing on the bleachers at the end of the field. If you measure the distance between you and your friend, it's going to be the same no matter which way you're facing. But with signed distance, you'll measure the distance from you to your friend, AND you'll take into account which side of the field your friend is on.

If your friend is on the side of the field closest to you, the signed distance will be a positive number. If your friend is on the opposite side of the field, the signed distance will be a negative number. And if your friend is exactly in the middle of the field, the signed distance will be zero.

Signed distance is a helpful tool in many fields, like math, engineering, and computer science. It helps us measure things accurately and make calculations based on where things are located.