Solid angle to the unit sphere with center P, which can be calculated as the surface integral: where formula_5 is the unit vector corresponding to formula_6, the position vector of an infinitesimal area of surface with respect to point P, and where formula_7 represents the unit normal vector to . Even if the projection on the unit sphere to the surface S is not isomorphic, the multiple folds are correctly considered according to the surface orientation described by the sign of the scalar product formula_8. Thus one can approximate the solid angle subtended by a small facet having flat surface area ,
Surface area but not on its position and orientation in space. This means that surface area is invariant under the group of Euclidean motions. These properties uniquely characterize surface area for a wide class of geometric surfaces called "piecewise smooth". Such surfaces consist of finitely many pieces that can be represented in the parametric form with a continuously differentiable function formula_4 The area of an individual piece is defined by the formula Thus the area of "S" is obtained by integrating the length of the normal vector formula_6 to the surface over the appropriate region "D" in the parametric "uv" plane. The