sphere-sphere intersection : getting the distance between spheres from the given radius of the intersecting circle

0
votes

I am looking at the typical sphere-sphere intersection :

enter image description here

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

And I was wondering how to reverse the equation to get the radius of the intersecting circle between two spheres.

enter image description here= enter image description here

Meaning that, given a radius for the intersection and two radii for the spheres, how to calculate the distance between them?

1
geometry

1 Answers

0
votes

Edit: There is no need to reverse that equation.
Simpler formula (thank you, uncle Pythagoras)

distance  = Sqrt(R^2-a^2) + Sqrt(r^2-a^2)