Sometimes, you need to something to be a particular angle. And sometimes, it’s not something that leads itself to using a protractor, so perhaps you measure out some distances that construct it. Like if you’re in Egypt and it’s five thousand years ago, perhaps you measure out a 3 and a 4, then tilt them until there is 5 between them, and you have a right angle.
Or if you’re me and it’s now, you have lots of right angles, and measure r*cos(a) and r*sin(a) along each direction, and you get angle “a”. But what’s a good r? It’s arbitrary, but since I’m not at all building a pyramid, something that makes both sides kinda even would be cool.
So after writing little snipplets to find one, I made an angle approximator:
It’ll take an angle, either entered in the field or by clicking on the little angle graphic, and provide two distance that will (as Pythagorean triangle or any other right angle) produce roughly that angle. It’ll show the best with the starting distance below 10, below 100 and below 1000 (since units are arbitrary, this could be inches, yards, millimeters, whatever, so it’s more about precision). Sometimes the <100 and/or <1000 will repeat one or both of the lower – that means the former level still stands as the best approximation. As a side effect, it’ll also catch exact solutions to some (such as 45 degrees – it’ll suggest 1 in each direction, and stick to it at all scales since 2/2, 34/34, etc will all be exact – two equal sides at a right angle makes a 45 degree angle). It’s not the most useful thing ever, and could be made better by allowing similar suggestions for other things (like slope, or a pre-measured shape, or something) but this is as far as I got before I didn’t really need it again just now.