tangent point between two circle problem

Hi:

I have two circle that does not intersect with each other, the radius and center coordinates are known. there should have four tangent lines (two inner and two outer) and are cooresponding to four pair of tangent points.

I need the four pair of tangent points.

is there anyway to do it in Matlab?

Thanks!

Yu

[KSSV]

Any pictorial example?

[Jan]

@Yu Li: You have asked a valid question concerning Matlab. You got an answer, which might be useful for other also, when they search for the same keywords. So there is no reason to remove the question. If you consider your problem as solved, you can use the "Accept" button to inform the readers, that this question does not need further asnwers.

[David Goodmanson]

Hi YL,

I went a bit over the top on my original comment, which was not necessary. Since you appear to have deleted the comment I was responding to, I am deleting mine as well.

I agree with Jan that there is no need to remove the question since Jan's answer has useful information.

Answer 1

[Jan]

It is recommended to search in the net or especially in this forum before posting a new question. What about this solution: https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/162912-tangent-to-two-circles

This thread contains the suggestion to solve the easy mathematical problem at first, because the implementation is not hard: https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/419870-how-to-find-the-center-of-a-circle-given-two-tangent-lines-and-radius-using-matlab

In the net you will find this also in a few seconds: https://codereview.stackexchange.com/questions/193239/draw-common-tangents-to-two-circles-interactively-in-matlab

The mathematical solution contains the step to create the tangents between the center of the smaller circle to two circles with the same center as the larger one, but with the radii R_large +/- R_small. Now the wanted points are obtained by a parallel movement. See e.g. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Circle-CircleTangents.html

Further approaches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangent_lines_to_circles

You are right: maybe such a function has been published in the File Exchange already. Then it is recommended to search by your own at first, and if this is not successful, to mention "I've searched in the FEX with these terms already: ..."

See: FEX: Common external tangents (I've mentioned how to expand this for the inner tangents: Replace r2-r1 by r2+r1)