How do I pick the largest peaks in a region?

The following MATLAB code takes in multiple peak coordinates and heights and eliminates lesser peaks that are within a certain distance threshold of the highest peak of the vicinity. Is there a better way to implement this code? Does a more efficient algorithm exist?

Code

    function [ the_peaks ] = max_peaks( peak_list, vicinity_threshold )
    %MAX_PEAKS(peak_list, vicinity_threshold) returns the highest peaks within
    %the vicinity specified by the vicinity_threshold.
    %
    %   peak_list is an array with rows defined by [x,y, amplitude]
    %
    %   vicinity_threshold is the distance within which all lesser peaks are
    %   killed.
    sorted_peaks=sortrows(peak_list,3,'desc');
    the_peaks=zeros(size(sorted_peaks));     % Preallocate
    peak_idx=1;
    while(~isempty(sorted_peaks))
        the_peaks(peak_idx,:)=sorted_peaks(1,:);     %The greatest peak.
        peak_idx=peak_idx+1;
        D=pdist2(sorted_peaks(1:end,1:2),sorted_peaks(1,1:2));     %Distance to other peaks
        np=D<vicinity_threshold;     % Peaks in the vicinity
        sorted_peaks(np,:)=[];     % Kill peaks in the vicinity
    end
    %
    the_peaks(~any(the_peaks,2),:)=[];     % clear preallocated extras
    end

example

    test_peaks=[1,1,0.5; 5,5,0.9; 5,1,0.6; 300,300,0.2; 303,303,0.7; 1,100,0.9; 1,104,0.95; 1,250,.7; 1,200,.75];
    mP=max_peaks(test_peaks,10)
    scatter (test_peaks(:,1),test_peaks(:,2),'o');
    hold on
    scatter (mP(:,1),mP(:,2),'*');

Answer 1

[Michelle Hirsch]

If you are up for replacing the peak finding, and have Signal Processing Toolbox, you could consider trying findpeaks. The MinPeaksDistance option keeps just the highest peak in a neighborhood of peaks.

[Bharath Lohray]

I just tried and discovered that findpeak() does not work on matrices. It needs a vector :-(