A conic section that is tangent to all sides of a triangle is called an inconic. Any trilinear equation of the form
(1)
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where , , and are functions of the side lengths , , and , is an inconic, and every inconic has such an equation.
The lines connecting the vertices of a triangle and the corresponding contact points of an inconic are concurrent in a point known as the Brianchon point of the inconic (Veblen and Young 1938, p. 111; Eddy and Fritsch 1994). The inconic parameters are given simply in terms of the trilinear coordinates of the Brianchon point as
(2)
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Furthermore, the center of an inconic with parameters is the point
(3)
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(Kimberling 1998, p. 238).
An inconic is a parabola iff
(4)
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in which case the focus is the point which lies on the circumcircle and the directrix passes through the orthocenter (Smith 1894, p. 70; Eddy and Fritsch 1994; Kimberling 1998, p. 239).
Examples of inconics include the Brocard inellipse, incircle, Kiepert parabola, Steiner inellipse, and Yff parabola.