Could you provide some

gulliet — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:19:11 Z

Could you provide some values/definitions for a5, n1, n2, n3? 

Moreover,

> restart; with(plots); 
> spacecurve({[x, y, z]}, t = 0 .. Pi, scaling = constrained, 
color = blue, thickness = 3)

returns a blank 3d-plot on my system (Maple 12.02, Mac OS X).

Also, I cannot see the pictures you posted for I get the 
following error message:

"Safari can’t open the page
“http://c:/Users/sarper/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.jpg”
because it can’t find the server “c”." 

Apparently the links you posted do not point to any Maplesolft's servers.

Regards,
--Jean-Marc

Great circles

Robert Israel — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 02:24:47 Z

Do you want to find the intersections, or do you want to plot them?

A great circle is determined by two points on the sphere (not equal or antipodal).

The simplest way to represent the great circle is using cartesian coordinates: it is the intersection with the sphere of the plane whose normal is the cross product of your two points. The intersection of the two planes will be the line in the direction of the cross product of the two normals. Thus the intersections of the great circle through a and b with the great circle through c and d are (in the notation of the VectorCalculus package) R*n/sqrt(n.n) and -R*n/sqrt(n.n) where n = (a &x b) &x (c &x d) and R is the radius of the sphere.

MaplePrimes - answers and comments on Question, intersection

Could you provide some

Great circles