Polygon Area

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The (signed) area of a planar non-self-intersecting polygon with vertices (x_1,y_1), ..., (x_n,y_n) is

 A=1/2(|x_1 x_2; y_1 y_2|+|x_2 x_3; y_2 y_3|+...+|x_n x_1; y_n y_1|),

where |M| denotes a determinant. This can be written

 A=1/2(x_1y_2-x_2y_1+x_2y_3-x_3y_2+...+x_(n-1)y_n-x_ny_(n-1)+x_ny_1-x_1y_n),

where the signs can be found from the diagram above.

Note that the area of a convex polygon is defined to be positive if the points are arranged in a counterclockwise order, and negative if they are in clockwise order (Beyer 1987).

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