title: Area and perimeter of a figure made out of overlapping circles
body: <p>I plan on writing this code in python, but this is more of a general algorithm-design problem than one having to do with any particular language. I'm writing code to simulate a hybrid rocket engine, and long story short, the problem involves finding both the perimeter and the area of a figure composed of many (possibly thousands) of overlapping circles.</p>
  
  <p>I saw this on stackexchange:</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1667310/combined-area-of-overlapping-circles">Combined area of overlapping circles</a></p>
  
  <p>except I need to find the perimeter also. Someone in that thread mentioned Monte Carlo (random point guess) methods, but can that be used to find the perimeter as well as the area?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks in advance.</p>