Test if two lines intersect - JavaScript function

Question

I\'ve tried searching for a javascript function that will detect if two lines intersect each other.

The function will take the x,y values of both the start end point

Answer 1

Here's a version based on this gist with some more concise variable names, and some Coffee.

JavaScript version

var lineSegmentsIntersect = (x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3, x4, y4)=> {
    var a_dx = x2 - x1;
    var a_dy = y2 - y1;
    var b_dx = x4 - x3;
    var b_dy = y4 - y3;
    var s = (-a_dy * (x1 - x3) + a_dx * (y1 - y3)) / (-b_dx * a_dy + a_dx * b_dy);
    var t = (+b_dx * (y1 - y3) - b_dy * (x1 - x3)) / (-b_dx * a_dy + a_dx * b_dy);
    return (s >= 0 && s <= 1 && t >= 0 && t <= 1);
}

CoffeeScript version

lineSegmentsIntersect = (x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3, x4, y4)->
    a_dx = x2 - x1
    a_dy = y2 - y1
    b_dx = x4 - x3
    b_dy = y4 - y3
    s = (-a_dy * (x1 - x3) + a_dx * (y1 - y3)) / (-b_dx * a_dy + a_dx * b_dy)
    t = (+b_dx * (y1 - y3) - b_dy * (x1 - x3)) / (-b_dx * a_dy + a_dx * b_dy)
    (0 <= s <= 1 and 0 <= t <= 1)

Answer 2

For all folks who would like to have a solutions ready for coldfusion, here is what I adapted from http://grepcode.com/file/repository.grepcode.com/java/root/jdk/openjdk/7-b147/java/awt/geom/Line2D.java#Line2D.linesIntersect%28double%2Cdouble%2Cdouble%2Cdouble%2Cdouble%2Cdouble%2Cdouble%2Cdouble%29

the imporants functions are ccw and linesIntersect from java.awt.geom.Line2D and I wrote them into coldfusion, so here we go:

<cffunction name="relativeCCW" description="schnittpunkt der vier punkte (2 geraden) berechnen">
<!---
Returns an indicator of where the specified point (px,py) lies with respect to this line segment. See the method comments of relativeCCW(double,double,double,double,double,double) to interpret the return value.
Parameters:
px the X coordinate of the specified point to be compared with this Line2D
py the Y coordinate of the specified point to be compared with this Line2D
Returns:
an integer that indicates the position of the specified coordinates with respect to this Line2D
--->
<cfargument name="x1" type="numeric" required="yes" >
<cfargument name="y1" type="numeric" required="yes">
<cfargument name="x2" type="numeric" required="yes" >
<cfargument name="y2" type="numeric" required="yes">
<cfargument name="px" type="numeric" required="yes" >
<cfargument name="py" type="numeric" required="yes">
    <cfscript>
    x2 = x2 - x1;
    y2 = y2 - y1;
    px = px - x1;
    py = py - y1;
    ccw = (px * y2) - (py * x2);
    if (ccw EQ 0) {
        // The point is colinear, classify based on which side of
        // the segment the point falls on.  We can calculate a
        // relative value using the projection of px,py onto the
        // segment - a negative value indicates the point projects
        // outside of the segment in the direction of the particular
        // endpoint used as the origin for the projection.
        ccw = (px * x2) + (py * y2);
        if (ccw GT 0) {
            // Reverse the projection to be relative to the original x2,y2
            // x2 and y2 are simply negated.
            // px and py need to have (x2 - x1) or (y2 - y1) subtracted
            //    from them (based on the original values)
            // Since we really want to get a positive answer when the
             //    point is "beyond (x2,y2)", then we want to calculate
            //    the inverse anyway - thus we leave x2 & y2 negated.       
            px = px - x2;
            py = py - y2;
            ccw = (px * x2) + (py * y2);
            if (ccw LT 0) {
                ccw = 0;
                }
        }
    }
    if (ccw LT 0) {
        ret = -1;
    }
    else if (ccw GT 0) {
        ret = 1;
    }
    else {
        ret = 0;
    }   
    </cfscript> 
    <cfreturn ret>
</cffunction>


<cffunction name="linesIntersect" description="schnittpunkt der vier punkte (2 geraden) berechnen">
<cfargument name="x1" type="numeric" required="yes" >
<cfargument name="y1" type="numeric" required="yes">
<cfargument name="x2" type="numeric" required="yes" >
<cfargument name="y2" type="numeric" required="yes">
<cfargument name="x3" type="numeric" required="yes" >
<cfargument name="y3" type="numeric" required="yes">
<cfargument name="x4" type="numeric" required="yes" >
<cfargument name="y4" type="numeric" required="yes">
    <cfscript>
    a1 = relativeCCW(x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3);
    a2 = relativeCCW(x1, y1, x2, y2, x4, y4);
    a3 = relativeCCW(x3, y3, x4, y4, x1, y1);
    a4 = relativeCCW(x3, y3, x4, y4, x2, y2);
    aa = ((relativeCCW(x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3) * relativeCCW(x1, y1, x2, y2, x4, y4) LTE 0)
            && (relativeCCW(x3, y3, x4, y4, x1, y1) * relativeCCW(x3, y3, x4, y4, x2, y2) LTE 0));
    </cfscript>
 <cfreturn aa>
</cffunction>

I hope this can help for adapting to other laguages?

Answer 3

Although it is useful to be able to find the intersection point, testing for whether line segments intersect is most often used for polygon hit-testing, and given the usual applications of that, you need to do it fast. Therefore I suggest you do it like this, using only subtraction, multiplication, comparison and AND. Turn computes the direction of the change in slope between the two edges described by the three points: 1 means counter-clockwise, 0 means no turn and -1 means clockwise.

This code expects points expressed as GLatLng objects but can be trivially rewritten to other systems of representation. The slope comparison has been normalised to epsilon tolerance to damp floating point errors.

function Turn(p1, p2, p3) {
  a = p1.lng(); b = p1.lat(); 
  c = p2.lng(); d = p2.lat();
  e = p3.lng(); f = p3.lat();
  A = (f - b) * (c - a);
  B = (d - b) * (e - a);
  return (A > B + Number.EPSILON) ? 1 : (A + Number.EPSILON < B) ? -1 : 0;
}

function isIntersect(p1, p2, p3, p4) {
  return (Turn(p1, p3, p4) != Turn(p2, p3, p4)) && (Turn(p1, p2, p3) != Turn(p1, p2, p4));
}

Answer 4

I've rewritten Peter Wone's answer to a single function using x/y instead of lat()/long()

function isIntersecting(p1, p2, p3, p4) {
    function CCW(p1, p2, p3) {
        return (p3.y - p1.y) * (p2.x - p1.x) > (p2.y - p1.y) * (p3.x - p1.x);
    }
    return (CCW(p1, p3, p4) != CCW(p2, p3, p4)) && (CCW(p1, p2, p3) != CCW(p1, p2, p4));
}