An oriented line can be defined either by prolongating a line segment between two points past these points, or by one point and an angular direction (in trigonometric orientation).
Since it is oriented the two half planes at its two sides are unambiguously identified as a left half plane and a right half plane. This can be used to identify the interior and the exterior in a simple way by local properties only when part of a line is used to define part of a polygon boundary.
A line can also be used to completely define a reference frame in the plane. It is sufficient to select one specific point in the line (the orthogonal projection of the original reference frame on the line) and to use the unit vector in the line direction and the orthogonal vector oriented from left half plane to right half plane. We define two coordinates by the process, the abscissa along the line, and the offset across the line. All points of the plane are uniquely identified by these two coordinates. The line is the set of points at zero offset, the left half plane is the set of points with negative offsets and the right half plane is the set of points with positive offsets.
@since 3.0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|