Friday 19 March 2010

How to find the area of a hex


How to find the area of a hex

Easy-peasy.

Find the width from face to face, and multiply that by 0.86, then multiply the two together to get your area.

For example, if your hex is nominally 25 miles wide from face to face, its area will be 25 * (25 * 0.86 = 21.5) = 537.5 square miles.

The illustration to the right displays how this is so; you will note that triangles A and a, and B and b are the same size. Move AB to ab and we get a rectangle of dimensions 1 x 0.86 — simple as that.

NOTE: thanks to jdjarvis for pointing out the glaringly obvious oversight in my original calculation :)

2 comments:

  1. Since the are of a rectangle is width x height, the area of a hexagon measured from side to side as you show in the figure would be area= W x (W * 0.86).

    So a 25 mile wide hex from face to face would have a total area of

    25 x (25 x 0.86) = 25 x 21.5 = 537.5 square miles.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Doh! Yes, you're right. I completely missed that step, thanks to my maths-challenged brain :(

    ReplyDelete