Line Tangent to a Circle

Hi all,

I am new to grasshopper. I want to have a line tangent to a circle all the time.I know the equation of the circle with center (0, 0) and radius r is x² + y² = r².The equation of tangent to this circle at the point (x', y') on the circle is x'x + y'y = r². Is there any component i can use to do this?

Thanks

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mårten Nettelbladt on March 16, 2010 at 12:12pm

Hi.
I'm not sure I understand your question.
You have a Line with a fixed starting point and you want it to be always tangent to a moving/changing Circle, is that it? If so, I guess there will always be two possible directions where the line is tangent. How would you choose which one?

You know about these components, right? (Evaluate Curve and Line SDL)

Permalink Reply by Mårten Nettelbladt on March 16, 2010 at 2:39pm

Not sure if this is any help, but this GH-file will find 2 tangent points (T1,T2) on a circle (C) (that can vary in size and location) from a given point (P).

Well, at least I think it's a correct solution, it was made by trial and error...

Attachments:

MN-line-tangent-to-circle.ghx, 91 KB
MN-tangent-to-circle-2.PNG, 104 KB

Permalink Reply by Aditya on March 16, 2010 at 7:45pm

Thanks Marten,

I am sorry i was not so clear in my last post.. Yes I want a line with a fixed starting point which is tangent to a given circle always(even if i change the radius of the circle). I was approaching this with the same definition you suggested earlier but i didn't had much luck with that. But this definition seems to do the trick...
Thanks again for all the help

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