How do you work out the area of a 2d shapes?

Answer 1

There are different methods to work out the exact areas for different shapes. These work for regular shapes or ones that can be built up from regular shapes (such as a rectangle with a semicircle sitting on top). It is usually not possible to work out the exact area of an irregular shape but should be possible to estimate areas of any 2-d shape. One method is given below: Mark the shape out on a grid (a sheet of paper with squares marked out on it). Count all squares where more than half the square is inside your 2-d shape = X. Count the number of squares where (about) half is inside your shape = Y. Ignore all squares where less than half is inside your shape. Then X + Y/2 will be a good estimate of the area of your shape. The smaller the squares in the grid, the more accurate the estimate but also, the greater the number of squares that will have to be counted.