How do you detect where two line segments intersec

Question

How do I determine whether or not two lines intersect, and if they do, at what x,y point?

Answer 1

This based on Gareth Ree's answer. It also returns the overlap of the line segments if they do. Coded in C++, V is a simple vector class. Where the cross product of two vectors in 2D returns a single scalar. It was tested and passed by my schools automatic testing system.

//Required input point must be colinear with the line
bool on_segment(const V& p, const LineSegment& l)
{
    //If a point is on the line, the sum of the vectors formed by the point to the line endpoints must be equal
    V va = p - l.pa;
    V vb = p - l.pb;
    R ma = va.magnitude();
    R mb = vb.magnitude();
    R ml = (l.pb - l.pa).magnitude();
    R s = ma + mb;
    bool r = s <= ml + epsilon;
    return r;
}

//Compute using vector math
// Returns 0 points if the lines do not intersect or overlap
// Returns 1 point if the lines intersect
//  Returns 2 points if the lines overlap, contain the points where overlapping start starts and stop
std::vector<V> intersect(const LineSegment& la, const LineSegment& lb)
{
    std::vector<V> r;

    //http://stackoverflow.com/questions/563198/how-do-you-detect-where-two-line-segments-intersect
    V oa, ob, da, db; //Origin and direction vectors
    R sa, sb; //Scalar values
    oa = la.pa;
    da = la.pb - la.pa;
    ob = lb.pa;
    db = lb.pb - lb.pa;

    if (da.cross(db) == 0 && (ob - oa).cross(da) == 0) //If colinear
    {
        if (on_segment(lb.pa, la) && on_segment(lb.pb, la))
        {
            r.push_back(lb.pa);
            r.push_back(lb.pb);
            dprintf("colinear, overlapping\n");
            return r;
        }

        if (on_segment(la.pa, lb) && on_segment(la.pb, lb))
        {
            r.push_back(la.pa);
            r.push_back(la.pb);
            dprintf("colinear, overlapping\n");
            return r;
        }

        if (on_segment(la.pa, lb))
            r.push_back(la.pa);

        if (on_segment(la.pb, lb))
            r.push_back(la.pb);

        if (on_segment(lb.pa, la))
            r.push_back(lb.pa);

        if (on_segment(lb.pb, la))
            r.push_back(lb.pb);

        if (r.size() == 0)
            dprintf("colinear, non-overlapping\n");
        else
            dprintf("colinear, overlapping\n");

        return r;
    }

    if (da.cross(db) == 0 && (ob - oa).cross(da) != 0)
    {
        dprintf("parallel non-intersecting\n");
        return r;
    }

    //Math trick db cross db == 0, which is a single scalar in 2D.
    //Crossing both sides with vector db gives:
    sa = (ob - oa).cross(db) / da.cross(db);

    //Crossing both sides with vector da gives
    sb = (oa - ob).cross(da) / db.cross(da);

    if (0 <= sa && sa <= 1 && 0 <= sb && sb <= 1)
    {
        dprintf("intersecting\n");
        r.push_back(oa + da * sa);
        return r;
    }

    dprintf("non-intersecting, non-parallel, non-colinear, non-overlapping\n");
    return r;
}

Answer 2

FWIW, the following function (in C) both detects line intersections and determines the intersection point. It is based on an algorithm in Andre LeMothe's "Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus". It's not dissimilar to some of the algorithm's in other answers (e.g. Gareth's). LeMothe then uses Cramer's Rule (don't ask me) to solve the equations themselves.

I can attest that it works in my feeble asteroids clone, and seems to deal correctly with the edge cases described in other answers by Elemental, Dan and Wodzu. It's also probably faster than the code posted by KingNestor because it's all multiplication and division, no square roots!

I guess there's some potential for divide by zero in there, though it hasn't been an issue in my case. Easy enough to modify to avoid the crash anyway.

// Returns 1 if the lines intersect, otherwise 0. In addition, if the lines 
// intersect the intersection point may be stored in the floats i_x and i_y.
char get_line_intersection(float p0_x, float p0_y, float p1_x, float p1_y, 
    float p2_x, float p2_y, float p3_x, float p3_y, float *i_x, float *i_y)
{
    float s1_x, s1_y, s2_x, s2_y;
    s1_x = p1_x - p0_x;     s1_y = p1_y - p0_y;
    s2_x = p3_x - p2_x;     s2_y = p3_y - p2_y;

    float s, t;
    s = (-s1_y * (p0_x - p2_x) + s1_x * (p0_y - p2_y)) / (-s2_x * s1_y + s1_x * s2_y);
    t = ( s2_x * (p0_y - p2_y) - s2_y * (p0_x - p2_x)) / (-s2_x * s1_y + s1_x * s2_y);

    if (s >= 0 && s <= 1 && t >= 0 && t <= 1)
    {
        // Collision detected
        if (i_x != NULL)
            *i_x = p0_x + (t * s1_x);
        if (i_y != NULL)
            *i_y = p0_y + (t * s1_y);
        return 1;
    }

    return 0; // No collision
}

BTW, I must say that in LeMothe's book, though he apparently gets the algorithm right, the concrete example he shows plugs in the wrong numbers and does calculations wrong. For example:

(4 * (4 - 1) + 12 * (7 - 1)) / (17 * 4 + 12 * 10)

= 844/0.88

= 0.44

That confused me for hours. :(

Answer 3

I think there is a much much simpler solution for this problem. I came up with another idea today and it seems to work just fine (at least in 2D for now). All you have to do, is to calculate the intersection between two lines, then check if the calculated intersection point is within the boundig boxes of both line segments. If it is, the line segments intersect. That's it.

EDIT:

This is how I calculate the intersection (I don't know anymore where I found this code snippet)

Point3D

comes from

System.Windows.Media.Media3D

public static Point3D? Intersection(Point3D start1, Point3D end1, Point3D start2, Point3D end2) {

        double a1 = end1.Y - start1.Y;
        double b1 = start1.X - end1.X;
        double c1 = a1 * start1.X + b1 * start1.Y;

        double a2 = end2.Y - start2.Y;
        double b2 = start2.X - end2.X;
        double c2 = a2 * start2.X + b2 * start2.Y;

        double det = a1 * b2 - a2 * b1;
        if (det == 0) { // lines are parallel
            return null;
        }

        double x = (b2 * c1 - b1 * c2) / det;
        double y = (a1 * c2 - a2 * c1) / det;

        return new Point3D(x, y, 0.0);
    }

and this is my (simplified for the purpose of the answer) BoundingBox class:

public class BoundingBox {
    private Point3D min = new Point3D();
    private Point3D max = new Point3D();

    public BoundingBox(Point3D point) {
        min = point;
        max = point;
    }

    public Point3D Min {
        get { return min; }
        set { min = value; }
    }

    public Point3D Max {
        get { return max; }
        set { max = value; }
    }

    public bool Contains(BoundingBox box) {
        bool contains =
            min.X <= box.min.X && max.X >= box.max.X &&
            min.Y <= box.min.Y && max.Y >= box.max.Y &&
            min.Z <= box.min.Z && max.Z >= box.max.Z;
        return contains;
    }

    public bool Contains(Point3D point) {
        return Contains(new BoundingBox(point));
    }

}

Answer 4

This solution may help

public static float GetLineYIntesept(PointF p, float slope)
    {
        return p.Y - slope * p.X;
    }

    public static PointF FindIntersection(PointF line1Start, PointF line1End, PointF line2Start, PointF line2End)
    {

        float slope1 = (line1End.Y - line1Start.Y) / (line1End.X - line1Start.X);
        float slope2 = (line2End.Y - line2Start.Y) / (line2End.X - line2Start.X);

        float yinter1 = GetLineYIntesept(line1Start, slope1);
        float yinter2 = GetLineYIntesept(line2Start, slope2);

        if (slope1 == slope2 && yinter1 != yinter2)
            return PointF.Empty;

        float x = (yinter2 - yinter1) / (slope1 - slope2);

        float y = slope1 * x + yinter1;

        return new PointF(x, y);
    }

Answer 5

I tried lot of ways and then I decided to write my own. So here it is:

bool IsBetween (float x, float b1, float b2)
{
   return ( ((x >= (b1 - 0.1f)) && 
        (x <= (b2 + 0.1f))) || 
        ((x >= (b2 - 0.1f)) &&
        (x <= (b1 + 0.1f))));
}

bool IsSegmentsColliding(   POINTFLOAT lineA,
                POINTFLOAT lineB,
                POINTFLOAT line2A,
                POINTFLOAT line2B)
{
    float deltaX1 = lineB.x - lineA.x;
    float deltaX2 = line2B.x - line2A.x;
    float deltaY1 = lineB.y - lineA.y;
    float deltaY2 = line2B.y - line2A.y;

    if (abs(deltaX1) < 0.01f && 
        abs(deltaX2) < 0.01f) // Both are vertical lines
        return false;
    if (abs((deltaY1 / deltaX1) -
        (deltaY2 / deltaX2)) < 0.001f) // Two parallel line
        return false;

    float xCol = (  (   (deltaX1 * deltaX2) * 
                        (line2A.y - lineA.y)) - 
                    (line2A.x * deltaY2 * deltaX1) + 
                    (lineA.x * deltaY1 * deltaX2)) / 
                 ((deltaY1 * deltaX2) - (deltaY2 * deltaX1));
    float yCol = 0;
    if (deltaX1 < 0.01f) // L1 is a vertical line
        yCol = ((xCol * deltaY2) + 
                (line2A.y * deltaX2) - 
                (line2A.x * deltaY2)) / deltaX2;
    else // L1 is acceptable
        yCol = ((xCol * deltaY1) +
                (lineA.y * deltaX1) -
                (lineA.x * deltaY1)) / deltaX1;

    bool isCol =    IsBetween(xCol, lineA.x, lineB.x) &&
            IsBetween(yCol, lineA.y, lineB.y) &&
            IsBetween(xCol, line2A.x, line2B.x) &&
            IsBetween(yCol, line2A.y, line2B.y);
    return isCol;
}

Based on these two formulas: (I simplified them from equation of lines and other formulas)

Answer 6

A C++ program to check if two given line segments intersect

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

struct Point
{
    int x;
    int y;
};

// Given three colinear points p, q, r, the function checks if
// point q lies on line segment 'pr'
bool onSegment(Point p, Point q, Point r)
{
    if (q.x <= max(p.x, r.x) && q.x >= min(p.x, r.x) &&
        q.y <= max(p.y, r.y) && q.y >= min(p.y, r.y))
       return true;

    return false;
}

// To find orientation of ordered triplet (p, q, r).
// The function returns following values
// 0 --> p, q and r are colinear
// 1 --> Clockwise
// 2 --> Counterclockwise
int orientation(Point p, Point q, Point r)
{
    // See 10th slides from following link for derivation of the formula
    // http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~pat/52233/slides/Geometry1x1.pdf
    int val = (q.y - p.y) * (r.x - q.x) -
              (q.x - p.x) * (r.y - q.y);

    if (val == 0) return 0;  // colinear

    return (val > 0)? 1: 2; // clock or counterclock wise
}

// The main function that returns true if line segment 'p1q1'
// and 'p2q2' intersect.
bool doIntersect(Point p1, Point q1, Point p2, Point q2)
{
    // Find the four orientations needed for general and
    // special cases
    int o1 = orientation(p1, q1, p2);
    int o2 = orientation(p1, q1, q2);
    int o3 = orientation(p2, q2, p1);
    int o4 = orientation(p2, q2, q1);

    // General case
    if (o1 != o2 && o3 != o4)
        return true;

    // Special Cases
    // p1, q1 and p2 are colinear and p2 lies on segment p1q1
    if (o1 == 0 && onSegment(p1, p2, q1)) return true;

    // p1, q1 and p2 are colinear and q2 lies on segment p1q1
    if (o2 == 0 && onSegment(p1, q2, q1)) return true;

    // p2, q2 and p1 are colinear and p1 lies on segment p2q2
    if (o3 == 0 && onSegment(p2, p1, q2)) return true;

     // p2, q2 and q1 are colinear and q1 lies on segment p2q2
    if (o4 == 0 && onSegment(p2, q1, q2)) return true;

    return false; // Doesn't fall in any of the above cases
}

// Driver program to test above functions
int main()
{
    struct Point p1 = {1, 1}, q1 = {10, 1};
    struct Point p2 = {1, 2}, q2 = {10, 2};

    doIntersect(p1, q1, p2, q2)? cout << "Yes\n": cout << "No\n";

    p1 = {10, 0}, q1 = {0, 10};
    p2 = {0, 0}, q2 = {10, 10};
    doIntersect(p1, q1, p2, q2)? cout << "Yes\n": cout << "No\n";

    p1 = {-5, -5}, q1 = {0, 0};
    p2 = {1, 1}, q2 = {10, 10};
    doIntersect(p1, q1, p2, q2)? cout << "Yes\n": cout << "No\n";

    return 0;
}