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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.
The angle θ and axis unit vector e define a rotation, concisely represented by the rotation vector θe.. In mathematics, the axis–angle representation parameterizes a rotation in a three-dimensional Euclidean space by two quantities: a unit vector e indicating the direction of an axis of rotation, and an angle of rotation θ describing the magnitude and sense (e.g., clockwise) of the ...
Typically, the coordinates of each of these vectors are arranged along a column of the matrix (however, beware that an alternative definition of rotation matrix exists and is widely used, where the vectors' coordinates defined above are arranged by rows [2]) = [^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^]
By extension, this can be used to transform all three basis vectors to compute a rotation matrix in SO(3), the group of all rotation matrices, from an axis–angle representation. In terms of Lie theory, the Rodrigues' formula provides an algorithm to compute the exponential map from the Lie algebra so(3) to its Lie group SO(3).
These matrices all have a determinant whose absolute value is unity. Rotation matrices have a determinant of +1, and reflection matrices have a determinant of −1. The set of all orthogonal two-dimensional matrices together with matrix multiplication form the orthogonal group: O(2).
Similarly, a rotation matrix requires orthogonal basis vectors, so in 3D space the third vector can unambiguously be calculated from the first two vectors with a cross product (though there is ambiguity in the sign of the third vector if improper rotations are allowed).
While a rotation matrix is an orthogonal matrix = representing an element of () (the special orthogonal group), the differential of a rotation is a skew-symmetric matrix = in the tangent space (the special orthogonal Lie algebra), which is not itself a rotation matrix. An infinitesimal rotation matrix has the form
That it is an orthogonal matrix means that its rows are a set of orthogonal unit vectors (so they are an orthonormal basis) as are its columns, making it simple to spot and check if a matrix is a valid rotation matrix. Above-mentioned Euler angles and axis–angle representations can be easily converted to a rotation matrix.