Circumconic and inconic


In Euclidean geometry, a circumconic is a conic section that passes through the three vertices of a triangle, and an inconic is a conic section inscribed in the sides, possibly extended, of a triangle.
Suppose are distinct non-collinear points, and let denote the triangle whose vertices are. Following common practice, denotes not only the vertex but also the angle at vertex, and similarly for and as angles in. Let the sidelengths of.
In trilinear coordinates, the general circumconic is the locus of a variable point satisfying an equation
for some point. The isogonal conjugate of each point on the circumconic, other than, is a point on the line
This line meets the circumcircle of in 0,1, or 2 points according as the circumconic is an ellipse, parabola, or hyperbola.
In barycentric coordinates, the general inconic is tangent to the three sidelines of and is given by the equation

Centers and tangent lines

Circumconic

The center of the general circumconic is the point
The lines tangent to the general circumconic at the vertices are, respectively,

Inconic

The center of the general inconic is the point
The lines tangent to the general inconic are the sidelines of, given by the equations,,.

Other features

Circumconic

Inconic

  • The general inconic reduces to a parabola if and only if
  • Suppose that and are distinct points, and let

  • A point in the interior of a triangle is the center of an inellipse of the triangle if and only if the point lies in the interior of the triangle whose vertices lie at the midpoints of the original triangle's sides. For a given point inside that medial triangle, the inellipse with its center at that point is unique.
  • The inellipse with the largest area is the Steiner inellipse, also called the midpoint inellipse, with its center at the triangle's centroid. In general, the ratio of the inellipse's area to the triangle's area, in terms of the unit-sum barycentric coordinates of the inellipse's center, is
  • The lines connecting the tangency points of any inellipse of a triangle with the opposite vertices of the triangle are concurrent.

Extension to quadrilaterals

All the centers of inellipses of a given quadrilateral fall on the line segment connecting the midpoints of the diagonals of the quadrilateral.

Examples

Circumconics