How to determine if a point is in a 2D triangle?

Question

Is there an easy way to determine if a point is inside a triangle? It's 2D, not 3D.

Answer 1

bool isInside( float x, float y, float x1, float y1, float x2, float y2, float x3, float y3 ) {
  float l1 = (x-x1)*(y3-y1) - (x3-x1)*(y-y1), 
    l2 = (x-x2)*(y1-y2) - (x1-x2)*(y-y2), 
    l3 = (x-x3)*(y2-y3) - (x2-x3)*(y-y3);
  return (l1>0 && l2>0  && l3>0) || (l1<0 && l2<0 && l3<0);
}

It can not be more efficient than this! Each side of a triangle can have independent position and orientation, hence three calculations: l1, l2 and l3 are definitely needed involving 2 multiplications each. Once l1, l2 and l3 are known, result is just a few basic comparisons and boolean operations away.

Answer 2

Honestly it is as simple as Simon P Steven's answer however with that approach you don't have a solid control on whether you want the points on the edges of the triangle to be included or not.

My approach is a little different but very basic. Consider the following triangle;

In order to have the point in the triangle we have to satisfy 3 conditions

1. ACE angle (green) should be smaller than ACB angle (red)
2. ECB angle (blue) should be smaller than ACB angle (red)
3. Point E and Point C shoud have the same sign when their x and y values are applied to the equation of the |AB| line.

In this method you have full control to include or exclude the point on the edges individually. So you may check if a point is in the triangle including only the |AC| edge for instance.

So my solution in JavaScript would be as follows;

function isInTriangle(t,p){

  function isInBorder(a,b,c,p){
    var m = (a.y - b.y) / (a.x - b.x);                     // calculate the slope
    return Math.sign(p.y - m*p.x + m*a.x - a.y) === Math.sign(c.y - m*c.x + m*a.x - a.y);
  }
  
  function findAngle(a,b,c){                               // calculate the C angle from 3 points.
    var ca = Math.hypot(c.x-a.x, c.y-a.y),                 // ca edge length
        cb = Math.hypot(c.x-b.x, c.y-b.y),                 // cb edge length
        ab = Math.hypot(a.x-b.x, a.y-b.y);                 // ab edge length
    return Math.acos((ca*ca + cb*cb - ab*ab) / (2*ca*cb)); // return the C angle
  }

  var pas = t.slice(1)
             .map(tp => findAngle(p,tp,t[0])),             // find the angle between (p,t[0]) with (t[1],t[0]) & (t[2],t[0])
       ta = findAngle(t[1],t[2],t[0]);
  return pas[0] < ta && pas[1] < ta && isInBorder(t[1],t[2],t[0],p);
}

var triangle = [{x:3, y:4},{x:10, y:8},{x:6, y:10}],
      point1 = {x:3, y:9},
      point2 = {x:7, y:9};

console.log(isInTriangle(triangle,point1));
console.log(isInTriangle(triangle,point2));

Answer 3

Here is a solution in python that is efficient, documented and contains three unittests. It's professional-grade quality and ready to be dropped into your project in the form of a module as is.

import unittest

###############################################################################
def point_in_triangle(point, triangle):
    """Returns True if the point is inside the triangle
    and returns False if it falls outside.
    - The argument *point* is a tuple with two elements
    containing the X,Y coordinates respectively.
    - The argument *triangle* is a tuple with three elements each
    element consisting of a tuple of X,Y coordinates.

    It works like this:
    Walk clockwise or counterclockwise around the triangle
    and project the point onto the segment we are crossing
    by using the dot product.
    Finally, check that the vector created is on the same side
    for each of the triangle's segments.
    """
    # Unpack arguments
    x, y = point
    ax, ay = triangle[0]
    bx, by = triangle[1]
    cx, cy = triangle[2]
    # Segment A to B
    side_1 = (x - bx) * (ay - by) - (ax - bx) * (y - by)
    # Segment B to C
    side_2 = (x - cx) * (by - cy) - (bx - cx) * (y - cy)
    # Segment C to A
    side_3 = (x - ax) * (cy - ay) - (cx - ax) * (y - ay)
    # All the signs must be positive or all negative
    return (side_1 < 0.0) == (side_2 < 0.0) == (side_3 < 0.0)

###############################################################################
class TestPointInTriangle(unittest.TestCase):

    triangle = ((22 , 8),
                (12 , 55),
                (7 , 19))

    def test_inside(self):
        point = (15, 20)
        self.assertTrue(point_in_triangle(point, self.triangle))

    def test_outside(self):
        point = (1, 7)
        self.assertFalse(point_in_triangle(point, self.triangle))

    def test_border_case(self):
        """If the point is exactly on one of the triangle's edges,
        we consider it is inside."""
        point = (7, 19)
        self.assertTrue(point_in_triangle(point, self.triangle))

###############################################################################
if __name__ == "__main__":
    suite = unittest.defaultTestLoader.loadTestsFromTestCase(TestPointInTriangle)
    unittest.TextTestRunner().run(suite)

There is an additional optional graphical test for the algorithm above to confirm its validity:

import random
from matplotlib import pyplot
from triangle_test import point_in_triangle

###############################################################################
# The area #
size_x = 64
size_y = 64

# The triangle #
triangle = ((22 , 8),
            (12 , 55),
            (7 , 19))

# Number of random points #
count_points = 10000

# Prepare the figure #
figure = pyplot.figure()
axes = figure.add_subplot(111, aspect='equal')
axes.set_title("Test the 'point_in_triangle' function")
axes.set_xlim(0, size_x)
axes.set_ylim(0, size_y)

# Plot the triangle #
from matplotlib.patches import Polygon
axes.add_patch(Polygon(triangle, linewidth=1, edgecolor='k', facecolor='none'))

# Plot the points #
for i in range(count_points):
    x = random.uniform(0, size_x)
    y = random.uniform(0, size_y)
    if point_in_triangle((x,y), triangle): pyplot.plot(x, y, '.g')
    else:                                  pyplot.plot(x, y, '.b')

# Save it #
figure.savefig("point_in_triangle.pdf")

Producing the following graphic:

Answer 4

This is the simplest concept to determine if a point is inside or outside the triangle or on an arm of a triangle. Determination of a point is inside a tringle by determinants

The simplest working code: `

#-*- coding: utf-8 -*-

import numpy as np

tri_points = [(1,1),(2,3),(3,1)]

def pisinTri(point,tri_points):
    Dx , Dy = point

    A,B,C = tri_points
    Ax, Ay = A
    Bx, By = B
    Cx, Cy = C

    M1 = np.array([ [Dx - Bx, Dy - By, 0],
                    [Ax - Bx, Ay - By, 0],
                    [1      , 1      , 1]
                  ])

    M2 = np.array([ [Dx - Ax, Dy - Ay, 0],
                    [Cx - Ax, Cy - Ay, 0],
                    [1      , 1      , 1]
                  ])

    M3 = np.array([ [Dx - Cx, Dy - Cy, 0],
                    [Bx - Cx, By - Cy, 0],
                    [1      , 1      , 1]
                  ])

    M1 = np.linalg.det(M1)
    M2 = np.linalg.det(M2)
    M3 = np.linalg.det(M3)
    print(M1,M2,M3)

    if(M1 == 0 or M2 == 0 or M3 ==0):
            print("Point: ",point," lies on the arms of Triangle")
    elif((M1 > 0 and M2 > 0 and M3 > 0)or(M1 < 0 and M2 < 0 and M3 < 0)):
            #if products is non 0 check if all of their sign is same
            print("Point: ",point," lies inside the Triangle")
    else:
            print("Point: ",point," lies outside the Triangle")

print("Vertices of Triangle: ",tri_points)
points = [(0,0),(1,1),(2,3),(3,1),(2,2),(4,4),(1,0),(0,4)]
for c in points:
    pisinTri(c,tri_points)

`

Answer 5

Since there's no JS answer,
Clockwise & Counter-Clockwise solution:

function triangleContains(ax, ay, bx, by, cx, cy, x, y) {

    let det = (bx - ax) * (cy - ay) - (by - ay) * (cx - ax)

    return  det * ((bx - ax) * (y - ay) - (by - ay) * (x - ax)) > 0 &&
            det * ((cx - bx) * (y - by) - (cy - by) * (x - bx)) > 0 &&
            det * ((ax - cx) * (y - cy) - (ay - cy) * (x - cx)) > 0 

}

EDIT: there was a typo for det computation (cy - ay instead of cx - ax), this is fixed.

https://jsfiddle.net/jniac/rctb3gfL/

I'm using here the same method as described above: a point is inside ABC if he is respectively on the "same" side of each line AB, BC, CA.

Answer 6

Java version of barycentric method:

class Triangle {
    Triangle(double x1, double y1, double x2, double y2, double x3,
            double y3) {
        this.x3 = x3;
        this.y3 = y3;
        y23 = y2 - y3;
        x32 = x3 - x2;
        y31 = y3 - y1;
        x13 = x1 - x3;
        det = y23 * x13 - x32 * y31;
        minD = Math.min(det, 0);
        maxD = Math.max(det, 0);
    }

    boolean contains(double x, double y) {
        double dx = x - x3;
        double dy = y - y3;
        double a = y23 * dx + x32 * dy;
        if (a < minD || a > maxD)
            return false;
        double b = y31 * dx + x13 * dy;
        if (b < minD || b > maxD)
            return false;
        double c = det - a - b;
        if (c < minD || c > maxD)
            return false;
        return true;
    }

    private final double x3, y3;
    private final double y23, x32, y31, x13;
    private final double det, minD, maxD;
}

The above code will work accurately with integers, assuming no overflows. It will also work with clockwise and anticlockwise triangles. It will not work with collinear triangles (but you can check for that by testing det==0).

The barycentric version is fastest if you are going to test different points with the same triangle.

The barycentric version is not symmetric in the 3 triangle points, so it is likely to be less consistent than Kornel Kisielewicz's edge half-plane version, because of floating point rounding errors.

Credit: I made the above code from Wikipedia's article on barycentric coordinates.