A comprehensive analysis of the Snellius-Pothenot problem

Abstract

It is known that a point in three-dimensional Euclidean space whose coordinates are equal to the cosines of the angles $\angle BDC, \angle ADC, \angle ADB$, where the point $D$ lies in the plane of a given triangle $ABC$, lies on the surface $\mathbb{BP}\subset [-1,1]^3$, given by the equation $1+2x_1x_2x_3-x_1^2-x_2^2-x_3^2 = 0$. It should be emphasized that the set of corresponding points essentially depends on the shape of triangle $ABC$. In this paper, we solve the following problem: For a fixed triangle $ABC$, for each point $U \in \mathbb{BP}$, determine the number of points $D$ from the plane of the triangle with the condition $U=(\cos \angle BDC, \cos \angle ADC, \cos \angle ADB)$. The problem of determining such points $D$ is known as the Snellius-Pothenot problem.