Question:
Formula for solid angle of an oblique pyramid (with rectangular base)?
ConcernedLemming
2011-08-27 07:09:54 UTC
I need the solid angle of the apex.

Formula for a right rectangular pyramid is on wikipedia. But I can't find a formula for an oblique pyramid anywhere on the web or in my old math reference books.

Alternately, is there a formula for a right pyramid with a rhombus base or any kind of pyramid with an irregular quadrilateral base?
Four answers:
smci
2011-08-30 00:51:02 UTC
No reference site I found seems to list these (surprisingly), so you're just going to have to find the solid angle yourself: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SolidAngle.html

You don't need integration, just vector calculus. I don't think it's hard, just obscure.



This guy derives the following vector formula for the solid angle of a (skew) tetrahedron:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=160247

You can use that subresult, decomposing the square base of the skew pyramid into two (possibly axially symmetric) triangles:



Let U,V,W be three vectors emanating from the origin, with respective lengths u,v,w. The (signed) area corresponding to the solid angle formed at this corner is:



2 arctan( det(M)/(uvw + u V.W + v U.W + w U.V) )



where M is the matrix formed by stacking U,V,W as rows and "." denotes vector dot product.

I think you can formulate the sum of solid angles subtended by two base triangles quite easily.



They got that result from MathForum: Geometry Puzzles (http://mathforum.org/kb/forum.jspa?forumID=129)



That should be everything you need.

________________________



Other than that, I did search for "solid angle skew pyramid" and found some comments on the mailing-list of:

AntiPrism (open-source software)

http://tech.dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/antiprism/message/3416

http://www.antiprism.com/

You might try searching or asking on their mailing-list.
2016-04-02 08:49:44 UTC
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design a rectangle.(like a paralelolgram to have a perspective view). Draw a line at 30 degrees to vertex line which belong to perpendicular faces.Have O(intersection point) Draw a line from O to opposite corner of rectangle.You have the pyramid. a, b are rectangle edge.Surfaces are A1 A2 A3 A4 - A1 A2 the perpendicular ones. The pyramid edge are : a / cos 30 = a 2 / (3^1/2)and O is at a*(3^1/2) / 3 The pyramid is a square a=b A1=A2 A3=A4 A1 = A2 = ab*(3^1/2) / 3 A3 =A4=ab* 2 / (3^1/2) A = 30+ 2*30*(2 / (3^1/2)+(3^1/2) / 3) = 30(1 + 2*3^1/2)
vannessa
2016-09-16 01:00:08 UTC
Want to know more about this as well
2016-09-19 06:39:47 UTC
It depends..


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