Intersecting rectangles coordinates (one rectangle can be contained within the other)

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I have 2 position vectors[x,y,width,height] representing 2 rectangles.If they are intersecting , what is the easiest method to find the coordinates of the intersected area.Is there a matlab function to do this ? I know rectint returns the area but i want the coordinates of the rectangle

Answers (2)

Kelly Kearney
Kelly Kearney on 29 Jun 2015
Assuming you already know the two polygons intersect, then you just need to compare where the left/right/bottom/top edges are:
r1 = [x1 y1 w1 h1];
r2 = [x2 y2 w2 h2];
l = max(x1,x2);
r = min(x1+w1,x2+w2);
b = max(y1,y2);
t = min(y1+h1,y2+h2);
r3 = [l r r-l t-b];
  3 Comments
Kelly Kearney
Kelly Kearney on 29 Jun 2015
If you're interested in quantifying different amounts of overlap (for example, where exactly 3 polygons overlap, vs 2, 4, 5, etc), you might want to look at this function of mine: multiplepolyint.m. It might be overkill for axis-aligned rectangles, but it does the job pretty efficiently, especially with the fast flag turned on.

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Brian Hannan
Brian Hannan on 29 Jun 2015
Edited: Brian Hannan on 29 Jun 2015
I noticed from your comment above that you want to find the area of all of the intersecting rectangles rather than the coordinates of their intersection points. If that's the case, you can use polybool to do an AND operation on all of the polygons and then use polyarea to get the area of the result. This requires the mapping toolbox. If you don't have the mapping toolbox, you can use Emmett's Polygon Clipping and Offsetting filexchange submission .

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