Yep. Bad answer. I should have stepped up to the white board first. If you
use the diagonal from the MBR, you will get a circle that encloses the entire
polygon. BUT, it is not the smallest circle (although in the case of the long
stripe it is.) There seems to be a pretty good article that describes one
algorithm for doing this:
Skyum, "A simple algorithm for computing the smallest enclosing circle",
Information Processing Letters 3(1991) 121-125.
It is definetly not a trivial problem though.
Victor Minor
>> Well, the math for the solution is way outside my tiny brain, but this
>> simple example will show that the suggested MBR method is incorrect.
>> Imagine we have a polygon which is a thin stripe 1.41 mile in length at a
>> diagonal orientation. The length of the sides of the MBR are then 1 mile
>> each. Obviously, a 1 mile diameter circle will not enclose a 1.41 mile
>> long
>> polygon.
>> Uffe is correct that the problem is more complex.
>> Steve Wallace
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