determine circle center based on two points (radius known) with solve/optim

Question

I have a pair of points and I would like to find a circles of known r that are determined by these two points. I will be using this in a simulation and possible space for x and y have boundaries (say a box of -200, 200).

It is known that square of radius is

(x-x1)^2 + (y-y1)^2 = r^2
(x-x2)^2 + (y-y2)^2 = r^2

I would now like to solve this non-linear system of equations to get two potential circle centers. I tried using package BB. Here is my feeble attempt which gives only one point. What I would like to get is both possible points. Any pointers into right direction will be met with complimentary beer on first possible occasion.

library(BB)
known.pair <- structure(c(-46.9531139599816, -62.1874917150412, 25.9011462171242, 
16.7441676243879), .Dim = c(2L, 2L), .Dimnames = list(NULL, c("x", 
"y")))

getPoints <- function(ps, r, tr) {
    # get parameters
     x <- ps[1]
     y <- ps[2]

     # known coordinates of two points
     x1 <- tr[1, 1]
     y1 <- tr[1, 2]
     x2 <- tr[2, 1]
     y2 <- tr[2, 2]

     out <- rep(NA, 2)
     out[1] <- (x-x1)^2 + (y-y1)^2 - r^2
     out[2] <- (x-x2)^2 + (y-y2)^2 - r^2
     out
}

slvd <- BBsolve(par = c(0, 0),
                fn = getPoints,
                method = "L-BFGS-B",
                tr = known.pair,
                r = 40
                )

Graphically you can see this with the following code, but you will need some extra packages.

library(sp)
library(rgeos)
plot(0,0, xlim = c(-200, 200), ylim = c(-200, 200), type = "n", asp = 1)
points(known.pair)
found.pt <- SpatialPoints(matrix(slvd$par, nrow = 1))
plot(gBuffer(found.pt, width = 40), add = T)

ADDENDUM

Thank you all for your valuable comments and code. I provide timings for answers by posters who complimented their answers with code.

    test replications elapsed relative user.self sys.self user.child sys.child
4   alex          100    0.00       NA      0.00        0         NA        NA
2  dason          100    0.01       NA      0.02        0         NA        NA
3   josh          100    0.01       NA      0.02        0         NA        NA
1 roland          100    0.15       NA      0.14        0         NA        NA

Answer 1

The following code will get you the points at the centers of the two desired circles. No time right now to comment this up or convert the results to Spatial* objects, but this should give you a good start.

First, here's an ASCII-art diagram to introduce point names. k and K are the known points, B is a point on the horizontal drawn through k, and C1 and C2 are the centers of the circles you are after:

        C2





                            K


                  k----------------------B






                                       C1

Now the code:

# Example inputs
r <- 40
known.pair <- structure(c(-46.9531139599816, -62.1874917150412, 
25.9011462171242, 16.7441676243879), .Dim = c(2L, 2L), 
.Dimnames = list(NULL, c("x", "y")))

## Distance and angle (/_KkB) between the two known points
d1 <- sqrt(sum(diff(known.pair)^2))
theta1 <- atan(do.call("/", as.list(rev(diff(known.pair)))))

## Calculate magnitude of /_KkC1 and /_KkC2
theta2 <- acos((d1/2)/r)

## Find center of one circle (using /_BkC1)
dx1 <- cos(theta1 + theta2)*r
dy1 <- sin(theta1 + theta2)*r
p1 <- known.pair[2,] + c(dx1, dy1)

## Find center of other circle (using /_BkC2)
dx2 <- cos(theta1 - theta2)*r
dy2 <- sin(theta1 - theta2)*r
p2 <- known.pair[2,] + c(dx2, dy2)

## Showing that it worked
library(sp)
library(rgeos)
plot(0,0, xlim = c(-200, 200), ylim = c(-200, 200), type = "n", asp = 1)
points(known.pair)
found.pt <- SpatialPoints(matrix(slvd$par, nrow = 1))
points(p1[1], p1[2], col="blue", pch=16)
points(p2[1], p2[2], col="green", pch=16)

Answer 2

This is the basic geometric way of going about solving it that everybody else is mentioning. I use polyroot to get the roots of the resulting quadratic equation but you could easily just use the quadratic equation directly.

# x is a vector containing the two x coordinates
# y is a vector containing the two y coordinates
# R is a scalar for the desired radius
findCenter <- function(x, y, R){
    dy <- diff(y)
    dx <- diff(x)
    # The radius needs to be at least as large as half the distance
    # between the two points of interest
    minrad <- (1/2)*sqrt(dx^2 + dy^2)
    if(R < minrad){
        stop("Specified radius can't be achieved with this data")
    }

    # I used a parametric equation to create the line going through
    # the mean of the two points that is perpendicular to the line
    # connecting the two points
    # 
    # f(k) = ((x1+x2)/2, (y1+y2)/2) + k*(y2-y1, x1-x2)
    # That is the vector equation for our line.  Then we can
    # for any given value of k calculate the radius of the circle
    # since we have the center and a value for a point on the
    # edge of the circle.  Squaring the radius, subtracting R^2,
    # and equating to 0 gives us the value of t to get a circle
    # with the desired radius.  The following are the coefficients
    # we get from doing that
    A <- (dy^2 + dx^2)
    B <- 0
    C <- (1/4)*(dx^2 + dy^2) - R^2

    # We could just solve the quadratic equation but eh... polyroot is good enough
    k <- as.numeric(polyroot(c(C, B, A)))

    # Now we just plug our solution in to get the centers
    # of the circles that meet our specifications
    mn <- c(mean(x), mean(y))
    ans <- rbind(mn + k[1]*c(dy, -dx),
                 mn + k[2]*c(dy, -dx))

    colnames(ans) = c("x", "y")

    ans
}

findCenter(c(-2, 0), c(1, 1), 3)

Answer 3

Following @PhilH's solution, just using trigonometry in R:

radius=40

Draw the original points on the radius

plot(known.pair,xlim=100*c(-1,1),ylim=100*c(-1,1),asp=1,pch=c("a","b"),cex=0.8)

Find the midpoint c of ab (which is also the midpoint of de the two circle centers)

AB.bisect=known.pair[2,,drop=F]/2+known.pair[1,,drop=F]/2
C=AB.bisect
points(AB.bisect,pch="c",cex=0.5)

Find the length and angle of the chord ab

AB.vector=known.pair[2,,drop=F]-known.pair[1,,drop=F]
AB.len=sqrt(sum(AB.vector^2))
AB.angle=atan2(AB.vector[2],AB.vector[1])
names(AB.angle)<-NULL

Calculate the length and angle of the line from c to the centers of the two circles

CD.len=sqrt(diff(c(AB.len/2,radius)^2))
CD.angle=AB.angle-pi/2

Calculate and plot the position of the two centers d and e from the perpendicular to ab and the length:

center1=C+CD.len*c(x=cos(CD.angle),y=sin(CD.angle))
center2=C-CD.len*c(x=cos(CD.angle),y=sin(CD.angle))
points(center1[1],center1[2],col="blue",cex=0.8,pch="d")
points(center2[1],center2[2],col="blue",cex=0.8,pch="e")

Shows: