Polar and Linear Planimeters

How They Are Used How They Work The main working parts of polar and linear planimeters are the same. Each has a rod, called the tracer arm, one end of which is the tracing point T, and a wheel attached to the rod with its axis parallel to the rod. A scale attached to the wheel records how much the wheel turns.

Polar Planimeter

Linear Planimeter
The two planimeters differ in the movement of the end of the tracer arm opposite the tracer point. In the linear planimeter, that end is restricted to move along a straight line. The drawing suggests that it runs along a track, but a more common way to cause this motion is to have this end attached to a set of wheels that are fixed to an axis so that the wheels turn together. In the polar planimeter, the end opposite the tracer point is restricted to move along a circle. This is done by making that point the hinge between the tracer arm and a secondary arm, one end of which (the pole) is fixed. The original polar planimeter was invented in 1854 by Jacob Amsler, a Swiss mathematician and inventor of many measuring instruments. It was so much simpler, easier to use, and more accurate than previously invented planimeters that the latter quickly became obsolete. Further

modifications of his basic design were made only to improve its accuracy. The linear planimeter works on the same basic principle as the polar planimeter, and is simply a variation that allows the areas of long, skinny regions to be measured.

Here are some pictures of a Keuffel & Esser polar planimeter I have (model 620015). This was made by the German company Haff in about 1970.

The picture on the left shows the planimeter ready to measure the area of a region. On the right is a disassembled view. The tracer point is equipped with a magnifying glass to make it easier follow the curve. The box at the left end of the tracer arm is a carriage containing the wheel and the counter with its scale. The wheel rests lightly on the paper and can roll when the tracer point is moved. The pole is at the top and is held in place by a weighted block that allows the pole arm to pivot.

The axis of the wheel is easily seen on the underside of the carriage. The wheel itself (indicated by the pointer) is a steel disk attached directly to the cylinder with the scale. The plastic wheel on the same axis that is visible in both pictures is slightly smaller than the steel one and does not contact the paper. It is used to set the scale to zero. This planimeter is on permanent loan from a member our biology department. If you are looking for a planimeter, good places to check are physics, chemistry, and engineering departments. They are almost always available at reasonable prices on eBay.

How Polar and Linear Planimeters are Used These planimeters are used by moving the tracer point around the boundary of the region being measured. As the tracer point moves the wheel partially rolls and partially slides on the paper, recording its motion perpendicular to the tracer arm. It turns out that when the tracer point returns to the point where it started, the net roll of the wheel is proportional to the area of the region. If a scale attached to the wheel is calibrated appropriately, the area can be read from the scale.

How Planimeters Work Main planimeter page

Last update 2 January 2004 Robert Foote

Planimeter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search

A planimeter (1908) measuring the indicated area by tracing its perimeter

Amsler polar planimeter

A planimeter (also known as a platometer) is a measuring instrument used to determine the area of an arbitrary two-dimensional shape.

Contents

1 Construction 2 Principle of the linear planimeter 3 Mathematical derivation o 3.1 Polar coordinates 4 References 5 External links

Construction

Polar planimeter

There are several kinds of planimeters, but all operate in a similar way. The precise way in which they are constructed varies, with the main types of mechanical planimeter being polar, linear and Prytz or "hatchet" planimeters. The Swiss mathematician Jakob Amsler-Laffon built the first modern planimeter in 1854, the concept having been pioneered by Johann Martin Hermann in 1814. Many developments followed Amsler's famous planimeter, including electronic versions.

A linear planimeter on scrolls for the determination of stretched shapes

They consist of a linkage with a pointer on one end, used to trace around the boundary of the shape. The other end of the linkage is fixed for a polar planimeter and restricted to a line for a linear planimeter. Tracing around the perimeter of a surface induces a movement in another part of the instrument and a reading of this is used to establish the area of the shape. The planimeter contains a measuring wheel that rolls along the drawing as the operator traces the contour. When the planimeter's measuring wheel moves perpendicular to its axis, it rolls, and this movement is recorded. When the measuring wheel moves parallel to its axis, the wheel skids without rolling, so this movement is ignored. That means the planimeter measures the distance that its measuring wheel travels, projected perpendicularly to the measuring wheel's axis of rotation. The area of the shape is proportional to the number of turns through which the measuring wheel rotates when the planimeter is traced along the complete perimeter of the shape. Developments of the planimeter can establish the position of the first moment of area (center of mass), and even the second moment of area.

Linear planimeter

Polar planimeter

The pictures show a linear and a polar planimeter. The pointer M at one end of the planimeter follows the contour C of the surface S to be measured. For the linear planimeter the movement of the "elbow" E is restricted to the y-axis. For the polar planimeter the "elbow" is connected to an arm with fixed other endpoint O. Connected to the arm ME is the measuring wheel with its axis of rotation parallel to ME. A movement of the arm ME can be decomposed into a movement perpendicular to ME, causing the wheel to rotate, and a movement parallel to ME, causing the wheel to skid, with no contribution to its reading.

Principle of the linear planimeter

Principle of the linear planimeter

The working of the linear planimeter may be explained by measuring the area of a rectangle ABCD (see image). Moving with the pointer from A to B the arm EM moves through the yellow parallelogram, with area equal to PQEM. This area is also equal to the area of the parallelogram A"ABB". The measuring wheel measures the distance PQ (perpendicular to EM). Moving from C to D the arm EM moves through the green parallelogram, with area equal to the area of the rectangle D"DCC". The measuring wheel now moves in the opposite direction, subtracting this reading from the former. The net result is the measuring of the difference of the yellow and green areas, which is the area of ABCD. There are of course the movements along BC and DA, but as they are the same but opposite, they cancel each other on the reading of the wheel.

Mathematical derivation
The operation of a linear planimeter can be justified by applying Green's theorem onto the components of the vector field N, given by:

where b is the y-coordinate of the elbow E.

This vector field is perpendicular to the measuring arm EM:

and has a constant size, equal to the length m of the measuring arm:

Then:

because:

The left hand side of the above equation, which is equal to the area A enclosed by the contour, is proportional to the distance measured by the measuring wheel, with proportionality factor m, the length of the measuring arm.
Polar coordinates

The connection with Green's theorem can be understood in terms of integration in polar coordinates: in polar coordinates, area is computed by the integral where the form being integrated is quadratic in r, meaning that the rate at which area changes with respect to change in angle varies quadratically with the radius. For a parametric equation in polar coordinates, where both r and vary as a function of time, this becomes

Turning to a planimeter, for a wheel fixed at the end of a link, rotating with respect to a point, the total rotation of the wheel is proportional to as the rotation is proportional to the

distance traveled, which at any point in time is proportional to radius and to change in angle, as in the circumference of a circle ( ). This last integrand can be recognized as the derivative of the earlier integrand

(with respect to r) shows that a planimeter computes the area integral in terms of the derivative, which is reflected in Green's theorem, which equates a line integral of a function on a (1-dimensional) contour to the (2-dimensional) integral of the derivative