Geometry – How to Calculate the Third Point of a Triangle

analytic geometrygeometrytriangles

I'm trying to calculate the third point of a triangle:

I know two points, $(2,3)$ and $(5,2)$ and the angles at this sides, both of them angles of $30^\circ$:

I made a drawing showing my example case:

enter image description here

I was able to get the distance between $(2,3)$ and $(5,2)$ = $3,1622776601683795$

But I don`t know how to get the third point! Do you maybe have an idea? Thanks

Best Answer

There are many ways to find your desired point. Here is one way. Since you calculated a length as an approximation rather than exactly, I'll also use approximations for irrational values.

First, let's find the distance $d$ of the desired point from our "base point" $(2,3)$. The base point $(2,3)$, the midpoint of the line segment between the two given points, and the desired point form a $30°$-$60°$-$90°$ triangle. The short leg has half the length of the line segment that you already calculated. Let's call that $\frac L2$, where $L$ is your calculated length. We then use the $30°$ angle in the right triangle to find the desired distance $d$:

$$\cos 30°=\frac{\frac L2}{d}$$ $$d=\frac L{2\cos 30°}=1.82574185835$$

Now we want to find the angle of inclination from the base point to the desired point. The angle of inclination from $(2,3)$ to $(5,2)$ is $\tan^{-1}\frac{-1}3=-18.4349488229°$. We add $30°$ to that to get our desired angle of inclination $\theta=11.5650511771°$.

We now find the desired point by its position relative to the base point.

$$\begin{align} (x,y) &= (2+d\cos\theta,3+d\sin\theta) \\ &= (3.78867513459,3.36602540378) \end{align}$$

This answer checks in Geogebra.

enter image description here


As I state in a comment to this answer, the method above for finding $d$, the distance of the desired point from the base point, works only for isosceles triangles where you know the endpoints of the base as well as the angles there. If the angles at the two known vertices differ, there is another way.

Let's say the length of the known triangle side is $L$, the known angle at the base point is $\alpha$ and the angle at the other known vertex is $\beta$. We can use the law of sines to get

$$\frac{\sin(180°-\alpha-\beta)}{L}=\frac{\sin(\beta)}{d}$$

so

$$d=\frac{L\sin(\beta)}{\sin(180°-\alpha-\beta)}$$

The rest of my method above works after this. This more general method also works and checks in your particular problem. Let me know if you want me to edit my answer above to only show the more general method: that might be easier for you.