pracma (version 1.5.5)

arclength: Arc Length of a Curve

Description

Calculates the arc length of a parametrized curve.

Usage

arclength(f, a, b, nmax = 20, tol = 1e-05, ...)

Arguments

f

parametrization of a curve in n-dim. space.

a,b

begin and end of the parameter interval.

nmax

maximal number of iterations.

tol

relative tolerance requested.

...

additional arguments to be passed to the function.

Value

• Returns a list with components length the calculated arc length, niter the number of iterations, and rel.err the relative error generated from the extrapolation.

Details

Calculates the arc length of a parametrized curve in R^n. It applies Richardson's extrapolation by refining polygon approximations to the curve.

The parametrization of the curve must be vectorized: if t-->F(t) is the parametrization, F(c(t1,t1,...)) must return c(F(t1),F(t2),...).

Can be directly applied to determine the arc length of a one-dimensional function f:R-->R by defining F (if f is vectorized) as F:t-->c(t,f(t)).

See Also

poly_length

Examples

##  Example: parametrized 3D-curve with t in 0..3*pi
f <- function(t) c(sin(2*t), cos(t), t)
arclength(f, 0, 3*pi)
# $length:  17.22203            # true length 17.222032...

##  Example: length of the sine curve
f <- function(t) c(t, sin(t))
arclength(f, 0, pi)             # true length  3.82019...

##  Example: oscillating 1-dimensional function (from 0 to 5)
f <- function(x) x * cos(0.1*exp(x)) * sin(0.1*pi*exp(x))
F <- function(t) c(t, f(t))
L <- arclength(F, 0, 5, tol = 1e-12, nmax = 25)
print(L$length, digits = 16)
# [1] 82.81020372882217         # true length 82.810203728822172...

# Split this computation in 10 steps (run time drops from 2 to 0.2 secs)
L <- 0
for (i in 1:10)
	L <- L + arclength(F, (i-1)*0.5, i*0.5, tol = 1e-10)$length
print(L, digits = 16)
# [1] 82.81020372882216

# Alternative calculation of arc length
f1 <- function(x) sqrt(1 + complexstep(f, x)^2)
L1 <- quadgk(f1, 0, 5, tol = 1e-14)
print(L1, digits = 16)
# [1] 82.81020372882216