Sean D
Sean D

Reputation: 376

finding a point in a polygon

Imagine a cellphone tower (red) and static cell phones (green) where the cellphone locations are known and FIXED. (ie, I know the x,y coordinate as well as the DISTANCE to each cell tower from a green location.)

Given the above I want find the x,y coordinate of an unknown device (orange) on the plane? The orange device can only give its distance to anyone of the cell towers but it knows nothing about the static devices (green).

Is there a way of finding the x,y of the orange device? Image

Upvotes: 0

Views: 72

Answers (1)

Angus Johnson
Angus Johnson

Reputation: 4643

Firstly, this looks like a homework assignment. Also, AFAICS, this has nothing to do with finding a point in a polygon.

Nevertheless ...

  1. since you know the distance of each green device from each cell tower, these distances are effectively the radii of circles so find the intersection of circles. (Two devices will render two solutions, so use the third device and circle intersections again to determine which of the first two solutions was the correct one.)
  2. repeat step one above for each cell tower.
  3. Then for each orange device repeat the same process - ie finding intersections of circles using distances from three towers.

Upvotes: 1

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