Find tangent points in a circle from a point

Question

Circle center : Cx,Cy

Circle radius : a

Point from which we need to draw a tangent line : Px,Py

I need the formula to find the two tangents (t1x, t1y) and (t2x,t2y) given all the above.

Edit: Is there any simpler solution using vector algebra or something, rather than finding the equation of two lines and then solving equation of two straight lines to find the two tangents separately? Also this question is not off-topic because I need to write a code to find this optimally

Answer 1

Here is one way using trigonometry. If you understand trig, this method is easy to understand, though it may not give the exact correct answer when one is possible, due to the lack of exactness in trig functions.

The points C = (Cx, Cy) and P = (Px, Py) are given, as well as the radius a. The radius is shown twice in my diagram, as a1 and a2. You can easily calculate the distance b between points P and C, and you can see that segment b forms the hypotenuse of two right triangles with side a. The angle theta (also shown twice in my diagram) is between the hypotenuse and adjacent side a so it can be calculated with an arccosine. The direction angle of the vector from point C to point P is also easily found by an arctangent. The direction angles of the tangency points are the sum and difference of the original direction angle and the calculated triangle angle. Finally, we can use those direction angles and the distance a to find the coordinates of those tangency points.

Here is code in Python 3.

# Example values
(Px, Py) = (5, 2)
(Cx, Cy) = (1, 1)
a = 2

from math import sqrt, acos, atan2, sin, cos

b = sqrt((Px - Cx)**2 + (Py - Cy)**2)  # hypot() also works here
th = acos(a / b)  # angle theta
d = atan2(Py - Cy, Px - Cx)  # direction angle of point P from C
d1 = d + th  # direction angle of point T1 from C
d2 = d - th  # direction angle of point T2 from C

T1x = Cx + a * cos(d1)
T1y = Cy + a * sin(d1)
T2x = Cx + a * cos(d2)
T2y = Cy + a * sin(d2)

There are obvious ways to combine those calculations and make them a little more optimized, but I'll leave that to you. It is also possible to use the angle addition and subtraction formulas of trigonometry with a few other identities to completely remove the trig functions from the calculations. However, the result is more complicated and difficult to understand. Without testing I do not know which approach is more "optimized" but that depends on your purposes anyway. Let me know if you need this other approach, but the other answers here give you other approaches anyway.

Note that if a > b then acos(a / b) will throw an exception, but this means that point P is inside the circle and there is no tangency point. If a == b then point P is on the circle and there is only one tangency point, namely point P itself. My code is for the case a < b. I'll leave it to you to code the other cases and to decide the needed precision to decide if a and b are equal.

Answer 2

Here's another way using complex numbers. If a is the direction (a complex number of length 1) of the tangent point on the circle from the centre c, and d is the (real) length along the tangent to get to p, then (because the direction of the tangent is I*a)

p = c + r*a + d*I*a 

rearranging

(r+I*d)*a = p-c

But a has length 1 so taking the length we get

|r+I*d| = |p-c|

We know everything but d, so we can solve for d:

d = +- sqrt( |p-c|*|p-c| - r*r)

and then find the a's and the points on the circle, one of each for each value of d above:

a = (p-c)/(r+I*d)
q = c + r*a

Answer 3

Hmm not really an algorithm question (people tend to mistake algorithm and equation) If you want to write a code then do (you did not specify language nor what prevents you from doing this which is the reason of close votes)... Without this info your OP is just asking for math equation which is indeed off-topic here and by answering this I risk (right-full) down-votes too (but this is/was asked a lot here with much less info and 4 reopen votes against 1 close put my decision weight on reopen and answering this anyway).

You can exploit the fact that you are in 2D as in 2D perpendicular vectors to vector a(x,y) are computed like this:

c = (-y, x)
d = ( y,-x)
c = -d

so you swap x,y and negate one (which one determines if the perpendicular vector is CW or CCW). It is really a rotation formula but as we rotate by 90deg the cos,sin are just +1 and -1.

Now normal n to any circumference point on circle lies in the line going through that point and circles center. So putting all this together your tangents are:

// normal
nx = Px-Cx
ny = Py-Cy
// tangent 1
tx = -ny
ty = +nx
// tangent 2
tx = +ny
ty = -nx

If you want unit vectors than just divide by radius a (not sure why you do not call it r like the rest of the math world) so:

// normal
nx = (Px-Cx)/a
ny = (Py-Cy)/a
// tangent 1
tx = -ny
ty = +nx
// tangent 2
tx = +ny
ty = -nx

Answer 4

Let's go through derivation process:

As you can see, if the interior of the square is < 0 it's because the point is interior to the circumferemce. When the point is outside of the circumference there are two solutions, depending on the sign of the square.

The rest is easy. Take atan(solution) and be carefull here with the signs, you may better do some checks.
Use (2) and then undo (1) transformations and that's all.

Answer 5

c# implementation of dmuir's answer:

static void FindTangents(Vector2 point, Vector2 circle, float r, out Line l1, out Line l2)
{
    var p = new Complex(point.x, point.y);
    var c = new Complex(circle.x, circle.y);
    var cp = p - c;
    var d = Math.Sqrt(cp.Real * cp.Real + cp.Imaginary * cp.Imaginary - r * r);
    var q = GetQ(r, cp, d, c);
    var q2 = GetQ(r, cp, -d, c);

    l1 = new Line(point, new Vector2((float) q.Real, (float) q.Imaginary));
    l2 = new Line(point, new Vector2((float) q2.Real, (float) q2.Imaginary));
}

static Complex GetQ(float r, Complex cp, double d, Complex c)
{
    return c + r * (cp / (r + Complex.ImaginaryOne * d));
}