Ellipse inscribed in an irregular quadrilateral

conic sectionsgeometrylinear algebra

I want to obtain the ellipse inscribed in the irregular quadrilateral (no parallel sides) defined by the four points A, B, C, D.

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I summarize the ideas given in the comments and answers:

  1. The is not an unique ellipse inside the given quadrilateral.
  2. For the unit square, there are infinite ellipses inscribed into it, with different eccentricities
  3. You cannot transform the unit square into a irregular quadrilateral using linear transformations, as those transform only two vectors into other two vectors. In this case we need to transform 4 vectors.

As shown in this figure:

enter image description here

Increasing the eccentricity, decreases the area. So the problem can be reduced to obtain the maximum area ellipse inscribed into the quadrilateral.

Best Answer

  • There is unique inscribed ellipse of a convex pentagon (dual case for $5$ points defining a conic). There are one and two degrees of freedom of drawing an inscribed ellipse in a (convex) quadrilateral and triangle respectively.

  • By means of skew transformation, we can transform an irregular quarilateral (convex but not parallelogram) into one with one pair of opposite sides are perpendicular.

$$(x',y')=(x+y\cos \omega,y\sin \omega)$$

  • Taking the vertices as $A(a,0)$, $B(b,0)$, $C(0,c)$ and $D(0,d)$ where $ab>0$, $cd>0$ and $(a-b)(d-c)>0$.

  • The two extreme cases are the ellipse degenerates into the diagonals.

  • Construct a family of conics touching with the axes with parameter $k$:

$$ \left[ k\left( \frac{x}{a}+\frac{y}{c} \right)+ (1-k)\left( \frac{x}{b}+\frac{y}{d} \right)-1 \right]^2=\lambda x y \tag{$\star$} $$

  • Using a discriminant to check tangency for $\frac{x}{a}+\frac{y}{d}=1$ or $\frac{x}{b}+\frac{y}{c}=1$, we can solve for $\lambda$.

$$\lambda=4k(1-k) \left( \frac{1}{a}-\frac{1}{b} \right) \left( \frac{1}{d}-\frac{1}{c} \right)$$

  • For ellipse,

$$4k(1-k) \left( \frac{1}{a}-\dfrac{1}{b} \right) \left( \frac{1}{d}-\dfrac{1}{c} \right) \left( \frac{k}{ac}+\frac{1-k}{bd} \right)>0 \implies k\in (0,1) $$

  • The centre of the ellipse lies on the Newton line which is the line joining the mid-points of the diagonals.

$$\text{centre}=\frac{ \left( \dfrac{k}{c}+\dfrac{1-k}{d},\dfrac{k}{a}+\dfrac{1-k}{b} \right)}{2 \left( \dfrac{k}{ac}+\dfrac{1-k}{bd} \right)}$$

  • See also another post of mine for the case of triangle here.

  • An illustration of a tangential quadrilateral. Note on the circular case at $k=0.6$:

enter image description here

Addendum

  • To generalize to any kind of convex quadrilateral, we may use the skew axes as the diagonals. Now taking the vertices as $A(a,0)$, $B(0,b)$, $C(c,0)$ and $D(0,d)$ where $ac<0$ and $bd<0$.

  • In tangential coordinates $(X,Y)$, tangent line $\frac{x}{a}+\frac{y}{b}=1$ can be written as $$Xx+Yy+1=0$$

  • Hence, the dual conic will pass through a "rectangle" with vectices $(-\frac{1}{a},-\frac{1}{b})$, $(-\frac{1}{c},-\frac{1}{b})$, $(-\frac{1}{c},-\frac{1}{d})$ and $(-\frac{1}{a},-\frac{1}{d})$, that is

$$\lambda (aX+1)(cX+1)+\mu (bY+1)(dY+1)=0$$

  • Let $(\lambda,\mu) \propto (1-k,k)$, the inscribed ellipse is

$$\det \begin{pmatrix} 0 & x & y & 1 \\ x & \lambda ac & 0 & \frac{\lambda (a+c)}{2} \\ y & 0 & \mu bd & \frac{\mu (b+d)}{2} \\ 1 &\frac{\lambda (a+c)}{2} & \frac{\mu (b+d)}{2} & \lambda+\mu \end{pmatrix}=0$$

  • The centre divides the Newton line, from $(0, \frac{b+d}{2})$ to $(\frac{a+c}{2},0)$ internally with ratio $\lambda:\mu$

  • Illustration of dual conics pair:

enter image description here

enter image description here