Obvious question on angles and solid-angles

  • Thread starter Thread starter mnb96
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Angles
mnb96
Messages
711
Reaction score
5
"obvious" question on angles and solid-angles

Hello,
I have found in http://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/hostings/cescg/CESCG97/csebfalvi/node2.html" an important statement about solid angles. Namely, the differential solid angle d\omega is related to an oriented differential surface area dA placed at distance r from the origin in the following way:

d\omega = \frac{dA \cdot cos\theta}{r^2}

where \theta is the angle between the normal of dA and the direction from the origin (see the figure in the http://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/hostings/cescg/CESCG97/csebfalvi/node2.html" ), and r^2 is the squared distance between the origin and the "centre" of dA.

The authors say that this very "obvious", but it is not for me, not even in the 2D case with ordinary angles.
How can I derive this result?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Physics news on Phys.org
Back
Top