title: Choosing eps and minpts for DBSCAN (R)?
body: <p>I've been searching for an answer for this question for quite a while, so I'm hoping someone can help me.  I'm using dbscan from the fpc library in R.  For example, I am looking at the USArrests data set and am using dbscan on it as follows:</p>
  
  <pre><code>library(fpc)
  ds &lt;- dbscan(USArrests,eps=20)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Choosing eps was merely by trial and error in this case.  However I am wondering if there is a function or code available to automate the choice of the best eps/minpts.  I know some books recommend producing a plot of the kth sorted distance to its nearest neighbour.    That is, the x-axis represents "Points sorted according to distance to kth nearest neighbour" and the y-axis represents the "kth nearest neighbour distance".    </p>
  
  <p>This type of plot is useful for helping choose an appropriate value for eps and minpts.  I hope I have provided enough information for someone to be help me out.  I wanted to post a pic of what I meant however I'm still a newbie so can't post an image just yet.</p>