# Realtime Collision Detection - Method of creating Plane makes no sense to me

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For those of you who have the book: Realtime Collision Detection by Christer Ericson I am stuck on P194 where the book shows me how to create a Triangle struct with Planes. "For a triangle ABC, the triangle stucture tri can be initalized as follows." The lines of code I am having a problem with are:

tri.p = Plane(n, a);  // n = Normal, a = tri.a (Point A in the triangle)
tri.edgePlaneBC = Plane(Cross(n, c - b), b);
tri.edgePlaneCA = Plane(Cross(n, a - c), c);


From what I can understand is the code is telling me to create a Plane using a Normal and another parameter. I assumed it would probably be the D of the Plane but seeing as a, b and c are all Vector3's then that couldn't be possible as the D is always a float. I am not sure what that other parameter is though, can anyone please help me? Thanks guys.

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Here is how the constructor in question would likely be implemented (C++-ish pseudocode):
Plane::Plane(Vector3 normal, Vector3 point) :    normal(normal), distance(dot(point, normal)){}
For this form of a plane, we know that p.n = d, where n is the plane normal, d is the plane distance, and p is any point on the plane. If we have a point available that we know lies on the plane, we can compute the distance directly from this point and the plane normal using the aforementioned equation.

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hmmmmmm :) let me see
perhaps its a point on the triangle (eg one of the corners)

tri.p = Plane(n, a); // n = Normal, a = tri.a (Point A in the triangle) <- slight clue :)

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Yes, a,b, and c are the points of the triangle, n is the normal of the triangle which gets calculated from the part you removed:

Triangle tri;Vector n = Cross(b - a,c - a);

n doesn't seem to be normalized, maybe its done in the Plane constructor/function.

What the code does is fill the Triangle structure consisting of the 3 perpendicular planes to the triangle normal that pass through the edges of the triangle (See figure 5.25 on page 193), in the book, it is used to get barycentric coordinates.

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I get you.

Would this be a correct implementation then (in C#):

    public struct CD_Plane    {        private Vector3 normal;     // Plane Normal.  Points (x) on the Plane satisfy: Vector3.Dot(Normal, x) = D        private float d;            // D = Vector3.Dot(Normal, p) for a given point (p) on the Plane            /// <summary>        /// Given 3 noncollinear Points [ordered Counter-Clockwise] compute the plane equation        /// (3 or more points are said to be collinear if they lie on a single straight line)        /// </summary>        /// <param name="a">Point 1 (As Vector3)</param>        /// <param name="b">Point 2 (As Vector3)</param>        /// <param name="c">Point 3 (As Vector3)</param>        public CD_Plane(Vector3 a, Vector3 b, Vector3 c)        {            this.normal = Vector3.Normalize(Vector3.Cross(b - a, c - a));            this.d = Vector3.Dot(this.normal, a);        }        /// <summary>        /// If we have a Point available that we know lies on the Plane.        /// We can compute the distance directly from this Point and the plane normal using:         /// distance = (Vector3.Dot(Point, Normal))        /// </summary>        /// <param name="normal">Plane Normal</param>        /// <param name="point">Point that lies on Plane</param>        public CD_Plane(Vector3 normal, Vector3 point)        {            this.normal = Vector3.Normalize(normal);            this.d = Vector3.Dot(this.normal, point);        }        public Vector3 Normal        {            get { return this.normal; }        }        public float D        {            get { return this.d; }        }    }

All feedback welcome.

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Yeah, seems correct enough, if you just want to calculate the plane equation of the triangle and not duplicate the functionality of the book's code sample that is.