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A basic 3D rotation (also called elemental rotation) is a rotation about one of the axes of a coordinate system. The following three basic rotation matrices rotate vectors by an angle θ about the x-, y-, or z-axis, in three dimensions, using the right-hand rule—which codifies their alternating signs.
In geometry, a three-dimensional space (3D space, 3-space or, rarely, tri-dimensional space) is a mathematical space in which three values (coordinates) are required to determine the position of a point. Most commonly, it is the three-dimensional Euclidean space, that is, the Euclidean space of dimension three, which models physical space.
Alternatively, the conversion can be considered as two sequential rectangular to polar conversions: the first in the Cartesian xy plane from (x, y) to (R, φ), where R is the projection of r onto the xy-plane, and the second in the Cartesian zR-plane from (z, R) to (r, θ).
Vectors are defined in cylindrical coordinates by (ρ, φ, z), where ρ is the length of the vector projected onto the xy-plane, φ is the angle between the projection of the vector onto the xy-plane (i.e. ρ) and the positive x-axis (0 ≤ φ < 2π), z is the regular z-coordinate. (ρ, φ, z) is given in Cartesian coordinates by:
Euclidean vectors such as (2, 3, 4) or (a x, a y, a z) can be rewritten as 2 i + 3 j + 4 k or a x i + a y j + a z k, where i, j, k are unit vectors representing the three Cartesian axes (traditionally x, y, z), and also obey the multiplication rules of the fundamental quaternion units by interpreting the Euclidean vector (a x, a y, a z) as the ...
Vector spaces generalize Euclidean vectors, which allow modeling of physical quantities (such as forces and velocity) that have not only a magnitude, but also a direction. The concept of vector spaces is fundamental for linear algebra , together with the concept of matrices , which allows computing in vector spaces.
Specifying the coordinates (components) of vectors of this basis in its current (rotated) position, in terms of the reference (non-rotated) coordinate axes, will completely describe the rotation. The three unit vectors, û, v̂ and ŵ, that form the rotated basis each consist of 3 coordinates, yielding a total of 9 parameters.
In three dimensions, any set of three-dimensional coordinates and their corresponding basis vectors can be used to define the location of a point in space—whichever is the simplest for the task at hand may be used. Commonly, one uses the familiar Cartesian coordinate system, or sometimes spherical polar coordinates, or cylindrical coordinates: