# What's the difference between finding the average Euclidean distance and using inertia_ in KMeans in sklearn?

I've found two different approaches online when using the Elbow Method to determine the optimal number of clusters for K-Means.

One approach is to use the following code:

distortions_2.append(sum(np.min(cdist(data,
kmeanModel.cluster_centers_,
'euclidean'),
axis = 1)) / data.shape[0])


Another is to use inertia_ from sklearn.cluster.KMeans:

distortions_3.append(kmeanModel.inertia_)


When I plot the results (using the same random states) both give different results but I'm not sure what the differences are, can anyone help?

Edit: If I replace the normalisation factor / data.shape[0] with squared **2 as suggested below, then I still don't get the same as for the inertia plot:

distortions_2.append(sum(np.min(cdist(data,
kmeanModel.cluster_centers_,
'euclidean'),
axis = 1)) ** 2)


Using squared just makes the plot a little smoother, but definitely not the same as using intertia_, I'm just not quite sure how inertia_ is calculated and what it means.

• Please do not post duplicates! stackoverflow.com/q/50467835/1060350 – Has QUIT--Anony-Mousse May 23 '18 at 5:07
• Apologies! I've requested a merge – lstodd May 23 '18 at 9:48
• Show ALL your code!!! Show the plot you got for the corrected equation. Come on man, you need to help yourself for us to help you. – JahKnows May 25 '18 at 0:52

You will notice that the inertia is the sum of squared distance between each point and its nearest cluster center. Thus by removing the normalization term / data.shape[0] and instead replacing that by a squared **2 these two expressions will be equivalent

distortions_2.append(sum(np.min(cdist(data
, kmeanModel.cluster_centers_
, 'euclidean')
, axis = 1)) **2)


and

distortions_2.append(kmeanModel.inertia_)


For example using this artificial data source, where we generate 5 Gaussian distributions with 300 points in each.

params = [[[ 0,1],  [ 0,1]],
[[ 5,1],  [ 5,1]],
[[-2,5],  [ 2,5]],
[[ 2,1],  [ 2,1]],
[[-5,1],  [-5,1]]]

n = 300
dims = len(params[0])

data = []
y = []
for ix, i in enumerate(params):
inst = np.random.randn(n, dims)
for dim in range(dims):
inst[:,dim] = params[ix][dim][0]+params[ix][dim][1]*inst[:,dim]
label = ix + np.zeros(n)

if len(data) == 0: data = inst
else: data = np.append( data, inst, axis= 0)
if len(y) == 0: y = label
else: y = np.append(y, label)

num_clusters = len(params)


We will then apply KMeans using different number of clusters

k = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]

inertias = []
dists = []

for i in k:
kmeans = KMeans(i)
kmeans.fit(data)
inertias.append(kmeans.inertia_)
dists.append(sum(np.min(spatial.distance.cdist(data, kmeans.cluster_centers_, 'euclidean'), axis=1)**2))

plt.plot(range(1, len(inertias)+1), inertias, label = 'Inertia')
plt.plot(range(1, len(dists)+1), dists, label = 'Distance')
plt.legend()
plt.show()


• Thanks for your response! I've tried plotting the same graph but using squared instead of normalizing as above, but I get the same shaped graph just a bit more smooth. It's totally different from the plot I get using inertia_ from KMeans so I still think I'm missing something – lstodd May 23 '18 at 10:48
• Copy my code exactly as you see it. Or update your question with the entirety of your code and I'll correct it. – JahKnows May 23 '18 at 10:49
• I have edited the question above, the formula I've used and inertia_ are different as the resultant plots are quite different – lstodd May 24 '18 at 9:35
• @Istodd, can you show me your whole code please? What is distortions_2 and distortions_3, these must be the same. Just paste your code please. – JahKnows May 24 '18 at 9:48