Tangent to two circles

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 14:56:34 GMT

While we're waiting for the Magic-Addon package, including the option to click on two arcs and automatically create the tangent, we can pay some humble homage to the Greeks...

Draw the two circles (or arcs)
1a) From the centres of each circle construct a cocentric axis.1b) Drop perpendicular axes for each circle.
Hint: rotate the main axes by 90 degrees and copy to the centre of each circle
2a) Draw a line connecting these two (perpendicular) axes, and extend (or intersect) with the cocentric axis.
3a) From this intersection (origin) for the circles, draw an arc extending from the centre of each circle crossing its perimeter (shown in green)
4a) Join the intersections of these arcs with the circles

Go get a mocha / beer to reward yourself for the effort. GS will pick up the bill

Actually it sounds (from the above) _really_ complicated but once you get the hang of it - about 10 seconds.

HTH - Stuart

PS. Of course if someone with DevKit wants the maths for this I'll be more than happy to provide it

topic Tangent to two circles in Documentation

Tangent to two circles