Fastest way of finding object in collection with coordinates near point

Question

I have collection of objects. Each object represents a coordinate range (ie, a block). What I want is to find the object near another coordinate in a given direction.

Is there a way to do this without traversing the whole collection all the time?

Answer 1

Please see this question.

Answer 2

You may want to look into Binary Space Partitioning, and similar algorithms (Quadtree comes to mind, along with variations on Plane Sweet Algorithms)

Answer 3

While inserting the objects .. sort them by the cordinates then use divide and conquer algorithm to search for your nearest possibility