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I am trying to solve the following problem (I am using Matlab, though pseudo-code / solutions in other languages are welcome):
I have two circles on a Cartesian plane defined by their centroids (p1, p2) and their radii (r1, r2). circle 1 (c1 = [p1 r1]) is considered 'dynamic': it is being translated along the vector V = [0 -1]. circle 2 (c2 = [p2 r2]) is considered 'static': it lies in the path of c1 but the x component of its centroid is offset from the x component of c2 (otherwise the solution would be trivial: the distance between the circle centroids minus the sum of their radii).
I am trying to locate the distance (d) along V at which circle 1 will 'collide' with circle 2 (see the linked image). I am sure that I can solve this iteratively (i.e. translate c1 to the bounding box of c2 then converge / test for intersection). However, I would like to know if there is a closed form solution to this problem.
Shift coordinates to simplify expressions
px = p1.x - p2.x
py = p1.y - p2.y
And solve quadratic equation for d (zero, one, or two solutions)
px^2 + (py - d)^2 = (r1 + r2)^2
(py - d)^2 = (r1 + r2)^2 - px^2
d = py +/- Sqrt((r1 + r2)^2 - px^2)
That's all.
As the question title does not match the question and accepted answer which is dependent on a fixed vector {0, -1}, or {0, 1} rather than an arbitrary vector I have added another solution that works for any unit vector.
Where (See diagram 1)
dx, dy is the unit vector of travel for circle c1
p1, p2 the centers of the moving circle c1 and static circle c2
r1, r2 the radius of each circle
The following will set d to the distance c1 must travel along dx, dy to collide with c2 if no collision the d will be set to Infinity
There are three cases when there is no solution
The moving circle is moving away from the static circle. u < 0
The moving circle never gets close enough to collide. dSq > rSq
The two circles are already overlapping. u < 0 luckily the math makes
this the same condition as moving away.
Note that if you ignore the sign of u (1 and 3) then d will be the distance to first (causal) contact going backward in time
Thus the pseudo code to find d
d = Infinity
rSq = (r1 + r2) ^ 2
u = (p1.x - p2.x) * dx + (p1.x - p2.x) * dy
if u >= 0
dSq = ((p2.x + dx * u) - p1.x) ^ 2 + ((p2.y + dy * u) - p1.y) ^ 2
if dSq <= rSq
d = u - (rSq - dSq) ^ 0.5
The point of contact can be found with
cpx = p1.x + dx * d;
cpy = p1.x + dy * d;
Diagram 1
I will try to be very descriptive with this. I'm editing a game right now and the scenario is a 3D area.
I have an initial angle, writen as a direction vector, and another vector which haves different coordinates. As we know, the angle between 2 vectors is given by the formula: Theta = ACos( DotProduct( vec1, vec2 ) / ( VectorLength( vec1 ) * VectorLength( vec2 ) ) )
So let's describe the scenario: I'm currently programming some kind of stationary weapon, a sentry gun, this thing moves slowly his "head", shooting bullets to enemies. That angle rotation thing is my problem.
Let's imagine this: I have my sentry gun on a empty 3D area, and a "enemy" spawns over there. I can currently get the direction vector of my sentry's view angle, and the direction vector between my sentry and the player. Let's guess, using the formula described, his separation angle is 45 degrees. My sentry gun thinks (calls a function) at every 0.1 seconds, and I want to move his head 5 degrees at every thinking function until it reach the the player (ie, both vectors are nearly equal), and that means it will reach the player (if player keeps on its position...) in 0.9 seconds (5 degrees from 45)
How I can move sentry's view angle slowly until it reach a target? In 2D is easily but know I'm fighting with a 3D scenario, and I'm currently lost with this.
Any help would be appreciated, and about coding, I will be grateful with a pseudocode. Thanks! (and sorry for my english)
What you need is called SLERP - spherical linear interpolation
Your starting direction vector is p0 there, goal direction is p1, Omega is your Theta, and t parameter varies in range 0..1 with needed step
Delphi example for 2D case (it is easy to control)
var
p0, p1: TPoint;
i, xx, yy: Integer;
omega, InvSinOmega, t, a0, a1: Double;
begin
P0 := Point(0, 200);
P1 := Point(200, 0);
omega := -Pi / 2;
InvSinOmega := 1.0 / Sin(omega);
Canvas.Brush.Color := clRed;
Canvas.Ellipse(120 + P0.X, 120 + P0.Y, 120 + P0.X + 7, 120 + P0.Y + 7);
Canvas.Ellipse(120 + P1.X, 120 + P1.Y, 120 + P1.X + 7, 120 + P1.Y + 7);
for i := 1 to 9 do begin
t := i / 10;
a0 := sin((1 - t) * omega) * InvSinOmega;
a1 := sin(t * omega) * InvSinOmega;
xx := Round(P0.X * a0 + P1.X * a1);
yy := Round(P0.Y * a0 + P1.Y * a1);
Canvas.Brush.Color := RGB(25 * i, 25 * i, 25 * i);
Canvas.Ellipse(120 + xx, 120 + yy, 120 + xx + 9, 120 + yy + 9);
end;
I'm trying to implement 2D Perlin noise to create Minecraft-like terrain (Minecraft doesn't actually use 2D Perlin noise) without overhangs or caves and stuff.
The way I'm doing it, is by creating a [50][20][50] array of cubes, where [20] will be the maximum height of the array, and its values will be determined with Perlin noise. I will then fill that array with arrays of cube.
I've been reading from this article and I don't understand, how do I compute the 4 gradient vector and use it in my code? Does every adjacent 2D array such as [2][3] and [2][4] have a different 4 gradient vector?
Also, I've read that the general Perlin noise function also takes a numeric value that will be used as seed, where do I put that in this case?
I'm going to explain Perlin noise using working code, and without relying on other explanations. First you need a way to generate a pseudo-random float at a 2D point. Each point should look random relative to the others, but the trick is that the same coordinates should always produce the same float. We can use any hash function to do that - not just the one that Ken Perlin used in his code. Here's one:
static float noise2(int x, int y) {
int n = x + y * 57;
n = (n << 13) ^ n;
return (float) (1.0-((n*(n*n*15731+789221)+1376312589)&0x7fffffff)/1073741824.0);
}
I use this to generate a "landscape" landscape[i][j] = noise2(i,j); (which I then convert to an image) and it always produces the same thing:
...
But that looks too random - like the hills and valleys are too densely packed. We need a way of "stretching" each random point over, say, 5 points. And for the values between those "key" points, you want a smooth gradient:
static float stretchedNoise2(float x_float, float y_float, float stretch) {
// stretch
x_float /= stretch;
y_float /= stretch;
// the whole part of the coordinates
int x = (int) Math.floor(x_float);
int y = (int) Math.floor(y_float);
// the decimal part - how far between the two points yours is
float fractional_X = x_float - x;
float fractional_Y = y_float - y;
// we need to grab the 4x4 nearest points to do cubic interpolation
double[] p = new double[4];
for (int j = 0; j < 4; j++) {
double[] p2 = new double[4];
for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) {
p2[i] = noise2(x + i - 1, y + j - 1);
}
// interpolate each row
p[j] = cubicInterp(p2, fractional_X);
}
// and interpolate the results each row's interpolation
return (float) cubicInterp(p, fractional_Y);
}
public static double cubicInterp(double[] p, double x) {
return cubicInterp(p[0],p[1],p[2],p[3], x);
}
public static double cubicInterp(double v0, double v1, double v2, double v3, double x) {
double P = (v3 - v2) - (v0 - v1);
double Q = (v0 - v1) - P;
double R = v2 - v0;
double S = v1;
return P * x * x * x + Q * x * x + R * x + S;
}
If you don't understand the details, that's ok - I don't know how Math.cos() is implemented, but I still know what it does. And this function gives us stretched, smooth noise.
->
The stretchedNoise2 function generates a "landscape" at a certain scale (big or small) - a landscape of random points with smooth slopes between them. Now we can generate a sequence of landscapes on top of each other:
public static double perlin2(float xx, float yy) {
double noise = 0;
noise += stretchedNoise2(xx, yy, 5) * 1; // sample 1
noise += stretchedNoise2(xx, yy, 13) * 2; // twice as influential
// you can keep repeating different variants of the above lines
// some interesting variants are included below.
return noise / (1+2); // make sure you sum the multipliers above
}
To put it more accurately, we get the weighed average of the points from each sample.
( + 2 * ) / 3 =
When you stack a bunch of smooth noise together, usually about 5 samples of increasing "stretch", you get Perlin noise. (If you understand the last sentence, you understand Perlin noise.)
There are other implementations that are faster because they do the same thing in different ways, but because it is no longer 1983 and because you are getting started with writing a landscape generator, you don't need to know about all the special tricks and terminology they use to understand Perlin noise or do fun things with it. For example:
1) 2) 3)
// 1
float smearX = interpolatedNoise2(xx, yy, 99) * 99;
float smearY = interpolatedNoise2(xx, yy, 99) * 99;
ret += interpolatedNoise2(xx + smearX, yy + smearY, 13)*1;
// 2
float smearX2 = interpolatedNoise2(xx, yy, 9) * 19;
float smearY2 = interpolatedNoise2(xx, yy, 9) * 19;
ret += interpolatedNoise2(xx + smearX2, yy + smearY2, 13)*1;
// 3
ret += Math.cos( interpolatedNoise2(xx , yy , 5)*4) *1;
About perlin noise
Perlin noise was developed to generate a random continuous surfaces (actually, procedural textures). Its main feature is that the noise is always continuous over space.
From the article:
Perlin noise is function for generating coherent noise over a space. Coherent noise means that for any two points in the space, the value of the noise function changes smoothly as you move from one point to the other -- that is, there are no discontinuities.
Simply, a perlin noise looks like this:
_ _ __
\ __/ \__/ \__
\__/
But this certainly is not a perlin noise, because there are gaps:
_ _
\_ __/
___/ __/
Calculating the noise (or crushing gradients!)
As #markspace said, perlin noise is mathematically hard. Lets simplify by generating 1D noise.
Imagine the following 1D space:
________________
Firstly, we define a grid (or points in 1D space):
1 2 3 4
________________
Then, we randomly chose a noise value to each grid point (This value is equivalent to the gradient in the 2D noise):
1 2 3 4
________________
-1 0 0.5 1 // random noise value
Now, calculating the noise value for a grid point it is easy, just pick the value:
noise(3) => 0.5
But the noise value for a arbitrary point p needs to be calculated based in the closest grid points p1 and p2 using their value and influence:
// in 1D the influence is just the distance between the points
noise(p) => noise(p1) * influence(p1) + noise(p2) * influence(p2)
noise(2.5) => noise(2) * influence(2, 2.5) + noise(3) * influence(3, 2.5)
=> 0 * 0.5 + 0.5 * 0.5 => 0.25
The end! Now we are able to calculate 1D noise, just add one dimension for 2D. :-)
Hope it helps you understand! Now read #mk.'s answer for working code and have happy noises!
Edit:
Follow up question in the comments:
I read in wikipedia article that the gradient vector in 2d perlin should be length of 1 (unit circle) and random direction. since vector has X and Y, how do I do that exactly?
This could be easily lifted and adapted from the original perlin noise code. Find bellow a pseudocode.
gradient.x = random()*2 - 1;
gradient.y = random()*2 - 1;
normalize_2d( gradient );
Where normalize_2d is:
// normalizes a 2d vector
function normalize_2d(v)
size = square_root( v.x * v.x + v.y * v.y );
v.x = v.x / size;
v.y = v.y / size;
Compute Perlin noise at coordinates x, y
function perlin(float x, float y) {
// Determine grid cell coordinates
int x0 = (x > 0.0 ? (int)x : (int)x - 1);
int x1 = x0 + 1;
int y0 = (y > 0.0 ? (int)y : (int)y - 1);
int y1 = y0 + 1;
// Determine interpolation weights
// Could also use higher order polynomial/s-curve here
float sx = x - (double)x0;
float sy = y - (double)y0;
// Interpolate between grid point gradients
float n0, n1, ix0, ix1, value;
n0 = dotGridGradient(x0, y0, x, y);
n1 = dotGridGradient(x1, y0, x, y);
ix0 = lerp(n0, n1, sx);
n0 = dotGridGradient(x0, y1, x, y);
n1 = dotGridGradient(x1, y1, x, y);
ix1 = lerp(n0, n1, sx);
value = lerp(ix0, ix1, sy);
return value;
}
I have a square bitmap of a circle and I want to compute the normals of all the pixels in that circle as if it were a sphere of radius 1:
The sphere/circle is centered in the bitmap.
What is the equation for this?
Don't know much about how people program 3D stuff, so I'll just give the pure math and hope it's useful.
Sphere of radius 1, centered on origin, is the set of points satisfying:
x2 + y2 + z2 = 1
We want the 3D coordinates of a point on the sphere where x and y are known. So, just solve for z:
z = Âħsqrt(1 - x2 - y2).
Now, let us consider a unit vector pointing outward from the sphere. It's a unit sphere, so we can just use the vector from the origin to (x, y, z), which is, of course, <x, y, z>.
Now we want the equation of a plane tangent to the sphere at (x, y, z), but this will be using its own x, y, and z variables, so instead I'll make it tangent to the sphere at (x0, y0, z0). This is simply:
x0x + y0y + z0z = 1
Hope this helps.
(OP):
you mean something like:
const int R = 31, SZ = power_of_two(R*2);
std::vector<vec4_t> p;
for(int y=0; y<SZ; y++) {
for(int x=0; x<SZ; x++) {
const float rx = (float)(x-R)/R, ry = (float)(y-R)/R;
if(rx*rx+ry*ry > 1) { // outside sphere
p.push_back(vec4_t(0,0,0,0));
} else {
vec3_t normal(rx,sqrt(1.-rx*rx-ry*ry),ry);
p.push_back(vec4_t(normal,1));
}
}
}
It does make a nice spherical shading-like shading if I treat the normals as colours and blit it; is it right?
(TZ)
Sorry, I'm not familiar with those aspects of C++. Haven't used the language very much, nor recently.
This formula is often used for "fake-envmapping" effect.
double x = 2.0 * pixel_x / bitmap_size - 1.0;
double y = 2.0 * pixel_y / bitmap_size - 1.0;
double r2 = x*x + y*y;
if (r2 < 1)
{
// Inside the circle
double z = sqrt(1 - r2);
.. here the normal is (x, y, z) ...
}
Obviously you're limited to assuming all the points are on one half of the sphere or similar, because of the missing dimension. Past that, it's pretty simple.
The middle of the circle has a normal facing precisely in or out, perpendicular to the plane the circle is drawn on.
Each point on the edge of the circle is facing away from the middle, and thus you can calculate the normal for that.
For any point between the middle and the edge, you use the distance from the middle, and some simple trig (which eludes me at the moment). A lerp is roughly accurate at some points, but not quite what you need, since it's a curve. Simple curve though, and you know the beginning and end values, so figuring them out should only take a simple equation.
I think I get what you're trying to do: generate a grid of depth data for an image. Sort of like ray-tracing a sphere.
In that case, you want a Ray-Sphere Intersection test:
http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/raytrace/rtinter1.htm
Your rays will be simple perpendicular rays, based off your U/V coordinates (times two, since your sphere has a diameter of 2). This will give you the front-facing points on the sphere.
From there, calculate normals as below (point - origin, the radius is already 1 unit).
Ripped off from the link above:
You have to combine two equations:
Ray: R(t) = R0 + t * Rd , t > 0 with R0 = [X0, Y0, Z0] and Rd = [Xd, Yd, Zd]
Sphere: S = the set of points[xs, ys, zs], where (xs - xc)2 + (ys - yc)2 + (zs - zc)2 = Sr2
To do this, calculate your ray (x * pixel / width, y * pixel / width, z: 1), then:
A = Xd^2 + Yd^2 + Zd^2
B = 2 * (Xd * (X0 - Xc) + Yd * (Y0 - Yc) + Zd * (Z0 - Zc))
C = (X0 - Xc)^2 + (Y0 - Yc)^2 + (Z0 - Zc)^2 - Sr^2
Plug into quadratic equation:
t0, t1 = (- B + (B^2 - 4*C)^1/2) / 2
Check discriminant (B^2 - 4*C), and if real root, the intersection is:
Ri = [xi, yi, zi] = [x0 + xd * ti , y0 + yd * ti, z0 + zd * ti]
And the surface normal is:
SN = [(xi - xc)/Sr, (yi - yc)/Sr, (zi - zc)/Sr]
Boiling it all down:
So, since we're talking unit values, and rays that point straight at Z (no x or y component), we can boil down these equations greatly:
Ray:
X0 = 2 * pixelX / width
Y0 = 2 * pixelY / height
Z0 = 0
Xd = 0
Yd = 0
Zd = 1
Sphere:
Xc = 1
Yc = 1
Zc = 1
Factors:
A = 1 (unit ray)
B
= 2 * (0 + 0 + (0 - 1))
= -2 (no x/y component)
C
= (X0 - 1) ^ 2 + (Y0 - 1) ^ 2 + (0 - 1) ^ 2 - 1
= (X0 - 1) ^ 2 + (Y0 - 1) ^ 2
Discriminant
= (-2) ^ 2 - 4 * 1 * C
= 4 - 4 * C
From here:
If discriminant < 0:
Z = ?, Normal = ?
Else:
t = (2 + (discriminant) ^ 1 / 2) / 2
If t < 0 (hopefully never or always the case)
t = -t
Then:
Z: t
Nx: Xi - 1
Ny: Yi - 1
Nz: t - 1
Boiled farther still:
Intuitively it looks like C (X^2 + Y^2) and the square-root are the most prominent figures here. If I had a better recollection of my math (in particular, transformations on exponents of sums), then I'd bet I could derive this down to what Tom Zych gave you. Since I can't, I'll just leave it as above.
I'm in need of help solving an issue, the problem came up doing one of my small robot experiments, the basic idea, is that each little robot has the ability to approximate the distance, from themselves to an object, however the approximate I'm getting is way too rough, and I'm hoping to calculate something more accurate.
So:
Input: A list of vertex (v_1, v_2, ... v_n), a vertex v_* (robots)
Output: The coordinates for the unknown vertex v_* (object)
Each vertex v_1 to v_n's coordinates are well known (supplied by calling getX() and getY() on the vertex), and its possible to get the approximate range to v_* by calling; getApproximateDistance(v_*), function getApproximateDistance() returns two variables variables, that is; minDistance and maxDistance. - The actual distance lies in between these.
So what I've been trying to do to obtain the coordinates for v_*, is to use trilateration, however I can't seem to find a formula for doing trilateration with limits (lower and upperbound), so that's really what I'm looking for (not really good enough at math, to figure it out myself).
Note: is triangulation the way to go instead?
Note: I would possibly love to know a way to do, performance/accuracy trade-offs.
An example of data:
[Vertex . `getX()` . `getY()` . `minDistance` . `maxDistance`]
[`v_1` . 2 . 2 . 0.5 . 1 ]
[`v_2` . 1 . 2 . 0.3 . 1 ]
[`v_3` . 1.5 . 1 . 0.3 . 0.5]
Picture to show data: http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/6414/unavngivetcb.png
It's obvious that the approximate for v_1 can be better, than [0.5; 1], as the figure that the above data creates is small cut of a annulus (limited by v_3), however how would I calculate that, and possibly find the approximate within that figure (this figure is possibly concave)?
Would this be better suited for MathOverflow?
I would go for a simple discrete approach. The implicit formula for an annulus is trivial and the intersection of multiple annulus if the number of them is high can be computed somewhat efficently with a scanline based approach.
For getting high accuracy with a fast computation an option could be using a multiresolution approach (i.e. first starting in low-res and then recomputing in high-res only samples that are close to a valid point.
A small python toy I wrote can generate a 400x400 pixel image of the intersection area in about 0.5 secs (this is the kind of computation that would get a 100x speedup if done with C).
# x, y, r0, r1
data = [(2.0, 2.0, 0.5, 1.0),
(1.0, 2.0, 0.3, 1.0),
(1.5, 1.0, 0.3, 0.5)]
x0 = max(x - r1 for x, y, r0, r1 in data)
y0 = max(y - r1 for x, y, r0, r1 in data)
x1 = min(x + r1 for x, y, r0, r1 in data)
y1 = min(y + r1 for x, y, r0, r1 in data)
def hit(x, y):
for cx, cy, r0, r1 in data:
if not (r0**2 <= ((x - cx)**2 + (y - cy)**2) <= r1**2):
return False
return True
res = 400
step = 16
white = chr(255)
grey = chr(192)
black = chr(0)
img = [black] * (res * res)
# Low-res pass
cells = {}
for i in xrange(0, res, step):
y = y0 + i * (y1 - y0) / res
for j in xrange(0, res, step):
x = x0 + j * (x1 - x0) / res
if hit(x, y):
for h in xrange(-step*2, step*3, step):
for v in xrange(-step*2, step*3, step):
cells[(i+v, j+h)] = True
# High-res pass
for i in xrange(0, res, step):
for j in xrange(0, res, step):
if cells.get((i, j), False):
img[i * res + j] = grey
img[(i + step - 1) * res + j] = grey
img[(i + step - 1) * res + (j + step - 1)] = grey
img[i * res + (j + step - 1)] = grey
for v in xrange(step):
y = y0 + (i + v) * (y1 - y0) / res
for h in xrange(step):
x = x0 + (j + h) * (x1 - x0) / res
if hit(x, y):
img[(i + v)*res + (j + h)] = white
open("result.pgm", "wb").write(("P5\n%i %i 255\n" % (res, res)) +
"".join(img))
Another interesting option could be using a GPU if available. Starting from a white picture and drawing in black the exterior of each annulus will leave at the end the intersection area in white.
For example with Python/Qt the code for doing this computation is simply:
img = QImage(res, res, QImage.Format_RGB32)
dc = QPainter(img)
dc.fillRect(0, 0, res, res, QBrush(QColor(255, 255, 255)))
dc.setPen(Qt.NoPen)
dc.setBrush(QBrush(QColor(0, 0, 0)))
for x, y, r0, r1 in data:
xa1 = (x - r1 - x0) * res / (x1 - x0)
xb1 = (x + r1 - x0) * res / (x1 - x0)
ya1 = (y - r1 - y0) * res / (y1 - y0)
yb1 = (y + r1 - y0) * res / (y1 - y0)
xa0 = (x - r0 - x0) * res / (x1 - x0)
xb0 = (x + r0 - x0) * res / (x1 - x0)
ya0 = (y - r0 - y0) * res / (y1 - y0)
yb0 = (y + r0 - y0) * res / (y1 - y0)
p = QPainterPath()
p.addEllipse(QRectF(xa0, ya0, xb0-xa0, yb0-ya0))
p.addEllipse(QRectF(xa1, ya1, xb1-xa1, yb1-ya1))
p.addRect(QRectF(0, 0, res, res))
dc.drawPath(p)
and the computation part for an 800x800 resolution image takes about 8ms (and I'm not sure it's hardware accelerated).
If only the barycenter of the intersection is to be computed then there is no memory allocation at all. For example a "brute-force" approach is just a few lines of C
typedef struct TReading {
double x, y, r0, r1;
} Reading;
int hit(double xx, double yy,
Reading *readings, int num_readings)
{
while (num_readings--)
{
double dx = xx - readings->x;
double dy = yy - readings->y;
double d2 = dx*dx + dy*dy;
if (d2 < readings->r0 * readings->r0) return 0;
if (d2 > readings->r1 * readings->r1) return 0;
readings++;
}
return 1;
}
int computeLocation(Reading *readings, int num_readings,
int resolution,
double *result_x, double *result_y)
{
// Compute bounding box of interesting zone
double x0 = -1E20, y0 = -1E20, x1 = 1E20, y1 = 1E20;
for (int i=0; i<num_readings; i++)
{
if (readings[i].x - readings[i].r1 > x0)
x0 = readings[i].x - readings[i].r1;
if (readings[i].y - readings[i].r1 > y0)
y0 = readings[i].y - readings[i].r1;
if (readings[i].x + readings[i].r1 < x1)
x1 = readings[i].x + readings[i].r1;
if (readings[i].y + readings[i].r1 < y1)
y1 = readings[i].y + readings[i].r1;
}
// Scan processing
double ax = 0, ay = 0;
int total = 0;
for (int i=0; i<=resolution; i++)
{
double yy = y0 + i * (y1 - y0) / resolution;
for (int j=0; j<=resolution; j++)
{
double xx = x0 + j * (x1 - x0) / resolution;
if (hit(xx, yy, readings, num_readings))
{
ax += xx; ay += yy; total += 1;
}
}
}
if (total)
{
*result_x = ax / total;
*result_y = ay / total;
}
return total;
}
And on my PC can compute the barycenter with resolution = 100 in 0.08 ms (x=1.50000, y=1.383250) or with resolution = 400 in 1.3ms (x=1.500000, y=1.383308). Of course a double-step speedup could be implemented even for the barycenter-only version.
I would switch from "max/min" to trying to minimize an error function. That gets you to the problem discussed at Finding a point that best fits the intersection of n spheres which is more tractable than intersecting a series of complicated shapes. (And what if one robot's sensor is messed up and it gives an impossible value? That variation will still usually give a reasonable answer.)
Not sure about your case, but in a typical robotics application you're going to be reading sensors periodically and crunching the data. If that's the case, you're trying to estimate the location based on noisy data and that's a common problem. As a simple (less rigorous) method, you could take the existing position and adjust it toward or away from each known point. Take the measured distance to target minus the present distance to target, multiply that delta (error) by some value between 0 and 1, and move your estimated position that much toward the target. Repeat for each target. Then repeat each time you get a new set of measurements. The multiplier will have an effect like a low-pass filter, smaller values will give you a more stable position estimate with slower response to movement. For the distance, use the average of the min and max. If you can put tighter bounds on the range to one target, you can increase the multiplier closer to 1 for just that target.
This is of course a crude position estimator. The math guys can probably be more rigorous, but also more complicated. The solution is definitely not anything to do with intersecting areas and working with geometric shapes.