POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.advanced-users : Bounding Spheres : Re: Bounding Spheres Server Time
29 Jul 2024 04:23:21 EDT (-0400)
  Re: Bounding Spheres  
From: Slime
Date: 29 Dec 2002 01:18:06
Message: <3e0e939e@news.povray.org>
> I have a mesh, I want to find the smallest possible bounding sphere that
> encompasses all the points.

This is a really interesting problem.

After thinking about it a bit, the only solution I can come up with is that
if you find the two points which are farthest apart, and then center the
sphere right between them, with a radius of (their distance
apart)/2*sqrt(3), all of the points will be in that sphere. (The sqrt(3) is
necessary because there could be a third point forming an equilateral
triangle with the first two.)

However, I'm tempted to think that there's a possible solution that will
find it perfectly. Maybe something like starting with a tiny (r=0) sphere in
the midst of the points, and growing its radius and moving it around to make
it encompass one point after another... I dunno.

 - Slime
[ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]


Post a reply to this message

Copyright 2003-2023 Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd.