constrain point movement relative to surrounding points

ola.

i am deforming a cubic point cloud relative to a line running through it.

so far the movement of the points is a vector, set as the inverse of each points' distance from the line. this works ok, and i can adjust the scale/factor of movement.

my problem is that i dont want the points to move through or past their adjacent neighbors.

i.e. each point is free to move but only within the space bound by its immediate surrounding points, which are affected by the movement of the other points around them and so on.

the lower definition grouping is a messy list function to connect the points from base up (i know theres probably a shorter way but my concern is comstraining the point movement).

the whole point of this is that the point grid represents a structural grid, which is affected by the line running through it. the list function will be piped to give me columns which will move around the deformation, columns which may join together with adjacent ones, but cannot run through each other.

at the moment the columns are going willynilly becaus i cant constrain the movement of the points.