Home > Construct > Line: Tangent to Circle

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The tangent line from a point to a circle or arc.

Menu: Construct > Line: Tangent to Circle | Node: Tangent | In depth: Lines, rays & segments

Click the outside point, then the circle.

Draws the line from a point that just touches a circle, grazing it rather than crossing it.

There are always two such lines from a point outside the circle, one on each side. Both are ghosted while you move the cursor, and the one you are nearest is the one a click keeps. This is the same way Apollonius picks among its answers.

Each thing you pick lights up as you take it, the point after the first click and the circle after the second, so you can always see what the tool is holding before it commits.

A point inside the circle has no tangent through it, and a point exactly on the circle has only one.

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• In the node graph: Tangent - build the same tangent as a node.