File:K-means convergence.gif

Summary[edit]

DescriptionK-means convergence.gif	English: Convergence of k-means clustering from an unfavorable starting position (two initial cluster centers are fairly close). Generated with en:ELKI. Deutsch: Konvergenz von k-means clustering, mit einer vergleichsweise ungünstigen Ausgangsposition. Mit en:ELKI erzeugt.
Date	30 May 2017
Source	Own work
Author	Chire
GIF development InfoField	This GIF graphic was created with ELKI.

The k-means process is interrupted at each iteration after updating the means. The Voronoi cells (black lines) are drawn with the new means, but the points labels are still from the previous iteration (i.e. assigned to the closest mean of the previous iteration). This is why the black lines are already one iteration ahead (the Voronoi cells are only computed in visualization, k-means does not compute them). This can be a bit irritating, but it is a fact that the result, until converged, is never completely consistent: either points are not assigned to the nearest center, or the center is not the mean of the assigned points. Once we have both properties, it has converged.

If I would interrupt k-means before updating the mean, then the centers would appear to be off (but that is not as easy to spot).

Licensing[edit]

I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following licenses:

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.htmlGFDLGNU Free Documentation Licensetruetrue

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International, 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.

You are free:

• to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
• to remix – to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

• attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
• share alike – If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same or compatible license as the original.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0CC BY-SA 4.0 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 truetrue

You may select the license of your choice.