Using Cayley Menger Determinants

Abstract

We use Cayley-Menger Determinants (CMDs) to obtain an intrinsic formulation of geometric constraints. First, we show that classical CMDs are very convenient to solve the Stewart platform problem. Second, issues like distances between points, distances between spheres, cocyclicity and cosphericity of points are also addressed. Third, we extend CMDs to deal with asymmetric problems. In 2D, the following configurations are considered: 3 points and a line; 2 points and 2 lines; 3 lines. In 3D, we consider: 4 points and a plane; 2 points and 3 planes; 4 planes.