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I'd like to show (or disprove) the claim that the Minkowski sum of two triangles with vertices in $\mathbb{R}^3$, $A+B$, is equal to the union of the unions of the Minkowski sums of $A$ along all edges of $B$ and the $B$ along all edges of $A$:

$ A + B = \cup \left[ \cup_{e \in B}\ A + e\ ,\ \cup_{e \in A}\ B + e \right] =: C $

where $e \in A$ denotes an edge-segment $e$ on the boundary of $A$.

I believe it's enough to show that $C$ is convex.

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  • $\begingroup$ Where does this come from? $\endgroup$
    – Igor Rivin
    Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 18:51
  • $\begingroup$ I had implemented an algorithm to construct the Minkowski sum of a triangle + a segment and wanted to know if I could trivially extend it to a triangle + a triangle (though surely this is not an efficient way). $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 21:53

4 Answers 4

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By far the simplest argument is given by Jack Huizenga here. One line summary: Minkowski sum and convex hulls commute.

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Here is a crude way to see that this is true: Given $a$ and $b$ in the interiors of $A$ and $B$, respectively, consider $A-a =\{x-a | x\in A\}$ and $b-B =\{b-y | y\in B\}$. These shifted triangles have a convex intersection that is more than a point because $2+2 \gt 3$ so the tangent spaces have nontrivial intersection. The intersection $\{x-a=b-y\}$ gives the pairs of points $\{(x,y) | x+y=a+b\}$ adding up to $a+b$. Each extreme point of the intersection corresponds to an extreme point of $A$ or $B$, hence a point contained in an edge of $A$ or an edge of $B$.

This argument only used that $A$ and $B$ are convex, so the same argument works for other convex $2$-dimensional shapes in $\mathbb{R}^3$, or $d$-dimensional shapes in $\mathbb{R}^{2d-1}.$

There is a nicer version of this argument in terms of the map from $A \times B$ to the Minkowski sum. The preimage of a point must intersect the $3$-skeleton which consists of $(A\times \delta B) \cup (\delta A \times B).$

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  • $\begingroup$ Minor note, if a = b to begin with then the intersection of the shifted triangles might be just a point. $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 17:02
  • $\begingroup$ I think it's not that $a=b$ that could cause that, it is that $a$ or $b$ could be on the boundary of $A$ or $B$, but that case is trivial since then the point is already obviously in an edge+triangle. $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 2:13
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Let $a_i$ and $b_j$ be the vertices of the triangles. For a given point $p$ in $A+B$ the space of solutions $(\alpha_1,\ldots,\beta_3)$ to $$ p = \sum_i \alpha_i a_i + \sum_j \beta_j b_j, ~\sum_i \alpha_i=1, \sum_j \beta_j = 1, \alpha_i\geq 0,\beta_i\geq 0 $$ is a nonempty convex polytope. Since it is given by $5$ equations and some inequalities, and lies in dimension $6$, at a vertex of it one of the inequalities must be an equality. Thus for any $p$ you can write it is as an aforementioned linear combination with either one of $\alpha_i$ or one of $\beta_j$ equal to zero.

This is precisely equivalent to the claim you seek.

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Let $u_1,u_2$ be vectors determined by two edges of $A$, and $v_1,v_2$ vectors determined by two edges of $B$. Let $U$ be the (linear) span of $\{u_1,u_2\}$ and $V$ the span of $\{v_1,v_2\}$. Both $U$ and $V$ have dimension $2$, so they intersect in a subspace $W$ of dimension at least $1$. Let $w$ be a unit vector in $W$.

Now if $a$ is a point from the relative interior of $A$, and $b$ a point from the relative interior of $B$, then for a sufficiently small $\varepsilon>0$, we have $a':=a+\varepsilon w \in A$, $b':=b-\varepsilon w \in B$, and $a'+b'=a+b$. Thus we can select $\varepsilon$ so that either $a'$ is on the relative boundary of $A$ or $b'$ is on the relative boundary of $B$. So, indeed, $A+B=C$.

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