arclength

Compute the arclength of a general curve in any number of dimensions
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Updated Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:09:40 +0000

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The arclength function computes the length of a general space curve. This is not too difficult if the curve is assumed to be piecewise linear (a one liner) but if the curve is to be a smoothly interpolated spline, then the problem becomes more difficult.

A nice way to solve this problem for the cubic case is to formulate it as a numerical integration, whereupon the solution can be gained from quadgk. Carefully written code breaks the problem into a series of integrals between each pair of breaks on the curve to avoid the derivative singularities one would find otherwise.

Cite As

John D'Errico (2024). arclength (https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/34871-arclength), MATLAB Central File Exchange. Retrieved .

MATLAB Release Compatibility
Created with R2011a
Compatible with any release
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Version Published Release Notes
1.0.0.0