How to find surface normal of a triangle

If I have a triangle with $3$ points $P_1, P_2,$ and $P_3$, each with $x, y,$ and $z$ coordinates, how do I find the surface normal $N$ in $x, y,$ and $z$ such that

$$N_x+N_y+N_z = 1$$

I'm looking for a simple formula that uses values like $x_1$, $x_2$, or $y_3$, and doesn't involve complicated equations or cross products.

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What are Nx,Ny,Nz? –  Salech Alhasov Feb 16 '13 at 17:42
@SalechAlhasov x, y, and z coordinates of the surface normal vector. –  acer Feb 16 '13 at 17:45
In general the $N$ for each of $x, y$ and $z$ will be different. One thing you could do is write $v = P_1 - P_2$ and $w = P_2 - P_3$ to get two vectors ,then take the cross product $u = v \times w$; then $u\cdot (x, y, z) = d$, where $d = u\cdot P_1 = u\cdot P_2 = u\cdot P_3$ ($P_1, P_2, P_3$ are on the plane.) –  snarski Feb 16 '13 at 17:46
@snarski Could you simplify that? –  acer Feb 16 '13 at 17:48
Cross products aren't that complicated... –  Rahul Feb 16 '13 at 18:27

The cross product of two sides of the triangle equals the surface normal. So, if $V$ = $P_2$ - $P_1$ and $W$ = $P_3$ - $P_1$, and $N$ is the surface normal, then:

$N_x = (V_y * W_z) - (V_z * W_y)$

$N_y = (V_z * W_x) - (V_x * W_z)$

$N_z = (V_x * W_y) - (V_y * W_x)$

If $A$ is the new vector whose components add up to 1, then:

$A_x = N_x / (|N_x| + |N_y| + |N_z|)$

$A_y = N_y / (|N_x| + |N_y| + |N_z|)$

$A_z = N_z / (|N_x| + |N_y| + |N_z|)$

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What will you do if $N_x+N_y+N_z=0$? –  Rahul Feb 17 '13 at 4:18
If $N_x+N_y+N_z=0$ then the condition that their sum equal 1, as the OP asked for, can't be met anyway. –  Daniel Rust Feb 18 '13 at 15:11
$N_x + N_y + N_z$ can't equal $0$ unless the triangle's points are all the same. –  acer Feb 18 '13 at 17:08
Oh really? What about the triangle whose vertices are $(0,0,0)$, $(1,1,0)$, and $(0,0,1)$? –  Rahul Feb 19 '13 at 5:35
@ℝⁿ. That's another exception, but I won't be using those triangles anyway. –  acer Feb 19 '13 at 23:17

Let $P_1=(x_1,y_1,z_1)$, $P_2=(x_2,y_2,z_2)$ and $P_3=(x_3,y_3,z_3)$. The normal vector to the triangle with these three points as its vertices is then given by the cross product $n=(P_2-P_1)\times (P_3-P_1)$. In matrix form, we then see that $$n=\det\left(\left[\begin{matrix}i&j&k\\ x_2-x_1&y_2-y_1&z_2-z_1\\ x_3-x_1&y_3-y_1&z_3-z_1 \end{matrix}\right]\right)$$

$$=\left(\begin{matrix}(y_2-y_1)(z_3-z_1)-(y_3-y_1)(z_2-z_1)\\ (z_2-z_1)(x_3-x_1)-(x_2-x_1)(z_3-z_1)\\ (x_2-x_1)(y_3-y_1)-(x_3-x_1)(y_2-y_1) \end{matrix}\right)$$

If you need that the sum of the coefficients of $\hat{n}$ equals 1, then set $\alpha$ equal to the sum of the coefficients of $n$ and then let $\hat{n}=\frac{1}{\alpha}n$. Obviously, if $\alpha=0$ then you will never be able to satisfy your condition as any scalar multiple of $n$ will have the same zero-sum of coefficients.

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