Summary

An understanding of triangles is essential for those who want to program in the graphics and games domains. They are the foundation of the data structures used to store meshes, as well as the basic drawing components of them. When it comes to mathematics in these realms, they are equally as important. Their trigonometric properties, as you will see in the next chapter, form the basis of vector mathematics.

In this chapter, you explored the fundamental properties of triangles and learned how to calculate the length of a triangle’s sides and angles using the relationships between similar triangles and the trigonometric rules found in right-angled triangles. Following the theory, we applied our knowledge of triangles to load a triangulated mesh into OpenGL and display it.

Now that you have explored the mathematics of triangles, we can start examining vectors.