title: Shortest distance between point and path
body: <p>for a geo-based online game I'm looking for an algorithm which finds the shortest distance between a specified point and a known path connected by x/y-coordinates, so that I can kill all redundant points/nodes. A link or keyword for this algorithm would help me a lot! thanks for reading</p>
  
  <p>For better understanding:
  <img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/lAAhi.png" alt="alt text"></p>