How do I compute the intersection point of two lines?

Question

I have two lines that intersect at a point. I know the endpoints of the two lines. How do I compute the intersection point in Python?

# Given these endpoints
#line 1
A = [X, Y]
B = [X, Y]

#line 2
C = [X, Y]
D = [X, Y]

# Compute this:
point_of_intersection = [X, Y]

Answer 1

Unlike other suggestions, this is short and doesn't use external libraries like numpy. (Not that using other libraries is bad...it's nice not need to, especially for such a simple problem.)

def line_intersection(line1, line2):
    xdiff = (line1[0][0] - line1[1][0], line2[0][0] - line2[1][0])
    ydiff = (line1[0][1] - line1[1][1], line2[0][1] - line2[1][1])

    def det(a, b):
        return a[0] * b[1] - a[1] * b[0]

    div = det(xdiff, ydiff)
    if div == 0:
       raise Exception('lines do not intersect')

    d = (det(*line1), det(*line2))
    x = det(d, xdiff) / div
    y = det(d, ydiff) / div
    return x, y

print line_intersection((A, B), (C, D))

And FYI, I would use tuples instead of lists for your points. E.g.

A = (X, Y)

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EDIT: Initially there was a typo. That was fixed Sept 2014 thanks to @zidik.

This is simply the Python transliteration of the following formula, where the lines are (a1, a2) and (b1, b2) and the intersection is p. (If the denominator is zero, the lines have no unique intersection.)