Computing volumes of polyhedra

Abstract

In this note we give two simple methods for calculating the volume of any closed bounded polyhedron in <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="bold upper R Superscript n"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="bold">R</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:mrow> <mml:mi>n</mml:mi> </mml:msup> </mml:mrow> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">{{\mathbf {R}}^n}</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> having an orientable boundary which is triangulated into a set of <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="left-parenthesis n minus 1 right-parenthesis"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo> <mml:mi>n</mml:mi> <mml:mo> − </mml:mo> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn> <mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">(n - 1)</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> -dimensional simplices. The formulas given require only coordinates of the vertices of the polyhedron.