Is there some way to nicely mathematically represent "zig-zaggy" polygons? I'll show an example:

Question

kainui · Answer

|dw:1416174620815:dw|

thesmartone · Answer

What do you mean "mathematically represent"?

perl · Answer

these are called concave polygons

kainui · Answer

That will probably help. By "mathematically represent" I mean if I'm given an "n-sided concave polygon" I could put it into a "for loop" and it could draw it every time with no problems except maybe resolution of pixels or something like that.

perl · Answer

you might be able to classify concave polygons by how many 'concave' angles it has

kainui · Answer

Hmmm That might work but I kind of doubt it. They are specifically representing cycloalkanes. This is sort of a project I'm doing for fun. Really they are supposed to be representing these three dimensional shapes on paper haha http://www2.chemistry.msu.edu/faculty/reusch/VirtTxtJml/Images/cycalkan.gif

kainui · Answer

It is not at all a crucial problem, I just thought it would be nice that once someone has drawn and connected together a single circuit of the graph that it will "snap" itself into place as one of these shapes rather than just the flat, regular polygon shape which is a kind of less accurate representation.

perl · Answer

if im understanding this correctly, 
you are looking for a procedure that can turn concave polygons into convex polygons ?

perl · Answer

the link you posted shows convex polygons

perl · Answer

'snap' a concave polygon into a convex polygon