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

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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)

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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

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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