Draw an ellipse based on its foci

Question

Is there a way to draw a simple ellipse based on the following definition (instead of eigenvalue) in R?

The definition I want to use is that an ellipse is the set of points in a plane for which the sum of the distances to two fixed points F₁ and F₂ is a constant.

Should I just use a polar cordinate?

This may be more algorithmic question.

Answer 1

As @DWin suggested, there are several implementations for plotting ellipses (such as function draw.ellipse in package plotrix). To find them:

 RSiteSearch("ellipse", restrict="functions")

That being said, implementing your own function is fairly simple if you know a little geometry. Here is an attempt:

ellipse <- function(xf1, yf1, xf2, yf2, k, new=TRUE,...){
    # xf1 and yf1 are the coordinates of your focus F1
    # xf2 and yf2 are the coordinates of your focus F2
    # k is your constant (sum of distances to F1 and F2 of any points on the ellipse)
    # new is a logical saying if the function needs to create a new plot or add an ellipse to an existing plot.
    # ... is any arguments you can pass to functions plot or lines (col, lwd, lty, etc.)
    t <- seq(0, 2*pi, by=pi/100)  # Change the by parameters to change resolution
    k/2 -> a  # Major axis
    xc <- (xf1+xf2)/2
    yc <- (yf1+yf2)/2  # Coordinates of the center
    dc <- sqrt((xf1-xf2)^2 + (yf1-yf2)^2)/2  # Distance of the foci to the center
    b <- sqrt(a^2 - dc^2)  # Minor axis
    phi <- atan(abs(yf1-yf2)/abs(xf1-xf2))  # Angle between the major axis and the x-axis
    xt <- xc + a*cos(t)*cos(phi) - b*sin(t)*sin(phi)
    yt <- yc + a*cos(t)*sin(phi) + b*sin(t)*cos(phi)
    if(new){ plot(xt,yt,type="l",...) }
    if(!new){ lines(xt,yt,...) }
    }

An example:

F1 <- c(2,3)
F2 <- c(1,2)
plot(rbind(F1, F2), xlim=c(-1,5), ylim=c(-1, 5), pch=19)
abline(h=0, v=0, col="grey90")
ellipse(F1[1], F1[2], F2[1], F2[2], k=2, new=FALSE, col="red", lwd=2)
points((F1[1]+F2[1])/2, (F1[2]+F2[2])/2, pch=3)