Curved Stage front

Hello everyone:

I'm a sound and lighting guy pretending to be a set guy. We have a space that has a custom stage built every show. We have our 4x8 platforms 3 feet high for out stage. The front of the stage is a curve. Is there a simple way to figure out the curve of the front of the stage. Please Help!!!!
 

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Simplest way is to get three people and three 50' tape measures. Have one person hold the dumb end of the tape at each point where the curve meets the sides and one at the center of the curve. Pull all the tapes out and find a point where all the tapes cross and all read the same distance. That will be your radius.
 
BTW, I have a friend who is a math genius he has a formula that lets you measure the chord of the arc and the distance to the circumference in 2 places and then you do some calculus and some witchcraft, summon Cthulhu and Viola you get the same information. I, however, suck at math. I think my way is easier.
 
also sometimes its more of a headache to measure perfectly. We've had a lot of success going to a jobsite survey with a roll of kraft paper and just tracing the front of the stage...
 
There is no absolute guarantee that the curve is, in fact, the arc of a circle. It could conceivably be a portion of an ellipse, for one example...or possibly even a curve without a simple mathematical definition, perhaps designed by sketching and scaling up using a table of offsets or some similar approach.
 
Cut a bunch of luaun 3’3” then attach and route.
 
"the curve of the front of the stage" OK, what do you need to know? (The area of the curved portion in your sketch? The radius of the curve? What kind of a curve is it? (circular? parabolic? elliptical? or some oddball?) The length of the chord? Or ??) And why do you need his information? What will you do with these details of the curve if you have them? Your reason for knowing may well determine what you want to know.
 
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I realize now that OP said there is a custom stage for every show, so maybe he's looking at a drawing from the designer for what the stage is supposed to look like and doesn't know how to make his platforms match the arc on the drawing....?
 

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