Exact computation of the CDF of the Euclidean distance between a point and a random variable uniformly distributed in disks, balls, or polyhedrons and application to PSHA

Vincent Guigues

Published 2014-05-30, updated 2014-08-19Version 3

We consider a random variable expressed as the Euclidean distance between an arbitrary point and a random variable uniformly distributed in a closed and bounded set of a three-dimensional Euclidean space. Four cases are considered for this set: a union of disjoint disks, a union of disjoint balls, a union of disjoint line segments, and the boundary of a polyhedron. In the first three cases, we provide closed-form expressions of the cumulative distribution function and the density. In the last case, we propose an algorithm with complexity O(n ln n), n being the number of edges of the polyhedron, that computes exactly the cumulative distribution function. An application of these results to probabilistic seismic hazard analysis and extensions are discussed.