I think your problem is not possible. Here is why (hope I am able to articulate).
Some basic background info: - The diameter of a circle is the distance from one edge of the circle to the furthest edge. - A line of circles edge to edge, so that their diameters are used, makes a strait line. - The radius of a circle is the distance from the center to any edge. Lets do some simple math... Diameter 1 = 10 Diameter 2 = 8 Diameter 3 = 7 Diameter 4 = 5 Thus, their sum = 30. Now lets use this as the radius of our big circle (BC). BCc = 2 * 3.14 * 30 = 188.4 (where BCc is the big circle circumference) BCd = 2 * 30 = 60 (where BCd is the big circle diameter) First lets look at placing the original circle centers on the big circle's path, so that their edges touch. It will quickly become clear that this is not going to work. 188.4 / 4 = 47.1 The sum of the original four diameters would have to equal 47.1. This is obviously not correct. Let see if we can do this by keeping all the circles inside the big circle. So, not only do we want to have all four of our original circles be touching, but their tangents need to touch the big circle as well. In addition to all of this the last circle needs to also touch the first circle. The most optimal form of this would assume that all four of our original circles have the same diameter. The sum of these circles would equal 2.4times the big circles diameter. Remember thought that this woulod be the optimal. So lets take a look at our numbers. Optimal diameter sum = 2.41 * 60 = 144.6 ** not needed info** Each unit circle's diameter = 144.6 / 4 = 36.15 So this means that the sum of our original circles has to equal at least 144.6 or greater. Our circles diameter sum = 30 which is far less than the required 144.6. See Circle Packing for optimal values. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/CirclePacking.html I hope that was somw what clear. Charles P On 9/17/06, Andreas R <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
i need to arrange x number of circles along a circular path, making sure they all touch their two neighbors. In this way, the path's radius is NOT given, but is rather made up from the sum of all the circles' diametres.
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