Expert: Josh - 5/18/2006

Question
Josh:
Is there a "catch-all" formula for finding the area of a very irregular shape?  I've got to figure out the square footage of my front yard, and it's got lots of twists and turns...so it's not readily broken down into just squares, half-circles, and triangles.
Any suggestions, advice greatly appreciated.
Warm regards,
David Gardner
davidg32@yahoo.com

Answer
David,

I'm afraid there isn't. It's a good idea to conduct some measurement. Or perhaps, you can look at the house plan drafted by the architect and break it down into piecewise, rectangular, triangular and circular blocks.

You can get helpful ideas on how to find the area of circular sectors (shapes resembling slices of a pie) and segments (wedges). I suggest that you look up "area of circle and sector" or something along those lines on a search engine or from a page dedicated to "area and geometry". The formula should be easy enough to use, once you see a proper diagram. To obtain a good approximation to the actual area, your have to be methodical.

Regards