Reply to Zheng, X.; Palffy-Muhoray, P. Comment on “Choi, M.G. Computing the Closest Approach Distance of Two Ellipsoids. <i>Symmetry</i> 2020, <i>12</i>, 1302”

Abstract

In this paper, we address the comment provided by Zheng and Palffy-Muhoray regarding our previous work on computing the closest approach distance of two ellipsoids. Additionally, we present experimental results that assess the numerical error bounds in the authors’ own implementation of the analytic solution for the closest approach distance of two ellipses. We report very rare cases where the closest approach distances of two ellipses are erroneously calculated as zero, which is impossible given that the radii of the ellipses are not zero.

Keywords

• ellipsoid
• ellipse
• closest approach distance
• inter-center direction