Re: algorithm for area of spherical polygon

From: Robert Israel (israel_at_math.ubc.ca)
Date: 02/17/05 

Date: 17 Feb 2005 04:55:47 GMT

In article <af4fdb4e.0502162026.704a6f11@posting.google.com>,
yogi <yogender_2k@lycos.com> wrote:

>if nyone has the algorithm for getting the area of a spherical
>irregular polygon ,please mail me as soon as possible.

By the Gauss-Bonnet theorem, the area of an polygon
(with geodesic sides) on a sphere of radius R is R^2 (2 pi - S)
where S is the sum of the exterior angles (in radians).

Robert Israel israel@math.ubc.ca
Department of Mathematics http://www.math.ubc.ca/~israel
University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC, Canada