Calculating Polygon Area

Question

So I've gotten this code in javascript to calculate irregular polygon area from the net.

function polygonArea(X, Y, numPoints)  
{    
area = 0;  // Accumulates area in the loop   
j = numPoints-1;  // The last vertex is the 'previous' one to the first

  for (i=0; i<numPoints; i++)
  { area = area +  (X[j]+X[i]) * (Y[j]-Y[i]); 
      j = i;  //j is previous vertex to i
  }   
  return area/2; 
}

var xPts = [3, 3, 2, 2, 3, 3, 6, 6, 9, 9, 4, 4 ];
var yPts = [2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 5, 5, 3, 3, 2];

var a = polygonArea(xPts, yPts, 4); 
alert("Area  = " + a);

The results seems to be correct. if the vertex traced by clock-wise direction, it will shows positive results however it will become negative if i traced vertex in anti clockwise direction. Why is that so?

How does this algorithm work? i really want to know what is the mathematical explanation behind it, because i am still having a hard time to understand the explanation on the net.

Answer 1

There is an algorithm to calculate polygon area:

function calcPolygonArea(vertices) {
    var total = 0;

    for (var i = 0, l = vertices.length; i < l; i++) {
      var addX = vertices[i].x;
      var addY = vertices[i == vertices.length - 1 ? 0 : i + 1].y;
      var subX = vertices[i == vertices.length - 1 ? 0 : i + 1].x;
      var subY = vertices[i].y;

      total += (addX * addY * 0.5);
      total -= (subX * subY * 0.5);
    }

    return Math.abs(total);
}