The distance of an arbitrary point to this line is given by .
\operatorname{distance}(\mathbf{x} = \mathbf{a} + t\mathbf{n}, \mathbf{p}) = \| (\mathbf{a}-\mathbf{p}) - ((\mathbf{a}-\mathbf{p}) \cdot \mathbf{n})\mathbf{n} \|.