Sphere Intersection Curve

Hi,

I am interested in visualizing (and locating) the points of intersection of three (or four) spheres.

*Region of my interest is the volume (of air or other material of the room) enclosed between intersecting spheres.

**The Center and Radius of both the spheres are known

This problem has me completely stuck.

Thank you.

[Sven]

This link gives a very thorough mathematical overview of the intersection between spheres.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Sphere-SphereIntersection.html

That's a good place to start.

[manish sharma]

Thanks Sven!

I know the basics. I have drawn the spheres using:

[x1,y1,z1] = sphere(30);

x1=x1*6.3245;

y1=y1*6.3245;

z1=z1*6.3245;

mesh(x1-5, y1+5, z1) % where (a,b,c) is center of the sphere

hold on

[x2,y2,z2] = sphere(30);

x2=x2*10;

y2=y2*10;

z2=z2*10;

mesh(x2+5, y2+5, z2)

hold on

[x3,y3,z3] = sphere(30);

x3=x3*8.9443;

y3=y3*8.9443;

z3=z3*8.9443;

mesh(x3+5, y3-5, z3)

figure;surface(x1,y1,z1);surface(x2,y2,z2);surface(x3,y3,z3);view(30,30);grid

hold off

From this, I can easily get the image containing the three spheres.

Now, I want to move to next step. That is, plotting the curve enclosed between the intersecting spheres.