This time, how about polygon area (plus circular loops).
The area of a 2D triangle is easy, it’s just half the magnitude of the cross product of two edges where you assume the z component is 0:
|cross((v1−v0),(v2−v0))|
The sign of the cross product tells you if the triangle is front or back facing (counter clockwise or clockwise). If you multiply out the cross product, it has an interesting repeating pattern if you collect it in terms with pairs of indices i and (i+1)%3
(v1.x−v0.x)*(v2.y−v0.y) − (v1.y−v0.y)*(v2.x−v0.x)
= v0.x*v1.y − v1.x*v0.y + v1.x*v2.y − v2.x*v1.y + v2.x*v0.y − v0.x*v2.y
As a bonus, for 3D triangles, the cross product points in the direction normal to the triangle, and its length is twice the area of the triangle. What’s more, the cyclical pattern appears again for each component (the order and signs here make more sense if you consider x,y,z to have their own mod cycle as well: x is followed by y is followed by z is followed by x …)
n.x = v0.y*v1.z − v1.y*v0.z + v1.y*v2.z − v2.y*v1.z + v2.y*v0.z − v0.y*v2.z
n.y = v0.z*v1.x − v1.z*v0.x + v1.z*v2.x − v2.z*v1.x + v2.z*v0.x − v0.z*v2.x
n.z = v0.x*v1.y − v1.x*v0.y + v1.x*v2.y − v2.x*v1.y + v2.x*v0.y − v0.x*v2.y
As a loop
n = float3(0,0,0);
for(int i0=0; i0<3; ++i0) {
int i1 = (i0+1)%3;
n.x += v[i0].y*v[i1].z − v[i1].y*v[i0].z;
n.y += v[i0].z*v[i1].x − v[i1].z*v[i0].x;
n.z += v[i0].x*v[i1].y − v[i1].x*v[i0].y;
}
Maybe overkill for a triangle, but the cool thing is that the same basic pattern works to find the area of any planar polygon with non-intersecting edges. It doesn’t even need to be convex. Just change the loop limit and mod from 3 to N. Just like the cross product, the magnitude will be twice the polygon area, and the sign will tell you if it is front or back facing.
Why does it work? It’s a simple application of Green’s theorum (or Stoke’s theorum in 3D). Bet you never thought you’d see that again, huh?
Mods add ugly unnecessary conditionals inside the loop, but if you shift the loop order a little, you can actually get rid of the mod:
for(int i0=N-1, i1=0; i1<N; i0=i1, ++i1) {
// loop order
// i0=N-1, i1=0
// i0=0, i1=1
// i0=1, i1=2
// …
// i0=N-2, i1=N-1
}
Extra bonus facts: in 3D, the resulting vector points in the direction of the polygon normal with length equal to twice the polygon area (just like the triangle cross product). Also, if you do it for the 1-ring of vertices around a given vertex (the vertices one edge away from a given vertex), you get exactly the triangle-area weighted average normal. Yes, that does mean that the area-weighted vertex normal doesn’t actually depend on the vertex position at all. Wierd, huh?
Marc