Introduced 160 years ago as an attempt to generalize complex numbers to higher dimensions, quaternions are now recognized as one of the most important concepts in modern computer graphics. They offer a powerful way to represent rotations and compared to rotation matrices they use less memory, compose faster, and are naturally suited for efficient interpolation of rotations. Despite this, many practitioners have avoided quaternions because of the mathematics used to understand them, hoping that some day a more intuitive description will be available. The wait is over. Andrew Hanson's new book is a fresh perspective on quaternions. The first part of the book focuses on visualizing quaternions to provide the intuition necessary to use them, and includes many illustrative examples to motivate why they are important—a beautiful introduction to those wanting to explore quaternions unencumbered by their mathematical aspects. The second part covers the all-important advanced applications, including quaternion curves, surfaces, and volumes. Finally, for those wanting the full story of the mathematics behind quaternions, there is a gentle introduction to their four-dimensional nature and to Clifford Algebras, the all-encompassing framework for vectors and quaternions. Richly illustrated introduction for the developer, scientist, engineer, or student in computer graphics, visualization, or entertainment computing. Covers both non-mathematical and mathematical approaches to quaternions.

Introduced 160 years ago as an attempt to generalize complex numbers to higher dimensions, quaternions are now recognized as one of the most important concepts in modern computer graphics. They offer a powerful way to represent rotations and compared to rotation matrices they use less memory, compose faster, and are naturally suited for efficient interpolation of rotations. Despite this, many practitioners have avoided quaternions because of the mathematics used to understand them, hoping that some day a more intuitive description will be available. The wait is over. Andrew Hanson's new book is a fresh perspective on quaternions. The first part of the book focuses on visualizing quaternions to provide the intuition necessary to use them, and includes many illustrative examples to motivate why they are important-a beautiful introduction to those wanting to explore quaternions unencumbered by their mathematical aspects. The second part covers the all-important advanced applications, including quaternion curves, surfaces, and volumes. Finally, for those wanting the full story of the mathematics behind quaternions, there is a gentle introduction to their four-dimensional nature and to Clifford Algebras, the all-encompassing framework for vectors and quaternions. * Richly illustrated introduction for the developer, scientist, engineer, or student in computer graphics, visualization, or entertainment computing. * Covers both non-mathematical and mathematical approaches to quaternions. * Companion website with an assortment of quaternion utilities and sample code, data sets for the book's illustrations, and Mathematica notebooks with essential algebraic utilities.

Introduced 160 years ago as an attempt to generalize complex numbers to higher dimensions, quaternions are now recognized as one of the most important concepts in modern computer graphics. They offer a powerful way to represent rotations and compared to rotation matrices they use less memory, compose faster, and are naturally suited for efficient interpolation of rotations. Despite this, many practitioners have avoided quaternions because of the mathematics used to understand them, hoping that some day a more intuitive description will be available. The wait is over. Andrew Hanson's new book is a fresh perspective on quaternions. The first part of the book focuses on visualizing quaternions to provide the intuition necessary to use them, and includes many illustrative examples to motivate why they are important-a beautiful introduction to those wanting to explore quaternions unencumbered by their mathematical aspects. The second part covers the all-important advanced applications, including quaternion curves, surfaces, and volumes. Finally, for those wanting the full story of the mathematics behind quaternions, there is a gentle introduction to their four-dimensional nature and to Clifford Algebras, the all-encompassing framework for vectors and quaternions. * Richly illustrated introduction for the developer, scientist, engineer, or student in computer graphics, visualization, or entertainment computing. * Covers both non-mathematical and mathematical approaches to quaternions. * Companion website with an assortment of quaternion utilities and sample code, data sets for the book's illustrations, and Mathematica notebooks with essential algebraic utilities.

Ever since the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton introduced quaternions in the nineteenth century--a feat he celebrated by carving the founding equations into a stone bridge--mathematicians and engineers have been fascinated by these mathematical objects. Today, they are used in applications as various as describing the geometry of spacetime, guiding the Space Shuttle, and developing computer applications in virtual reality. In this book, J. B. Kuipers introduces quaternions for scientists and engineers who have not encountered them before and shows how they can be used in a variety of practical situations. The book is primarily an exposition of the quaternion, a 4-tuple, and its primary application in a rotation operator. But Kuipers also presents the more conventional and familiar 3 x 3 (9-element) matrix rotation operator. These parallel presentations allow the reader to judge which approaches are preferable for specific applications. The volume is divided into three main parts. The opening chapters present introductory material and establish the book's terminology and notation. The next part presents the mathematical properties of quaternions, including quaternion algebra and geometry. It includes more advanced special topics in spherical trigonometry, along with an introduction to quaternion calculus and perturbation theory, required in many situations involving dynamics and kinematics. In the final section, Kuipers discusses state-of-the-art applications. He presents a six degree-of-freedom electromagnetic position and orientation transducer and concludes by discussing the computer graphics necessary for the development of applications in virtual reality.

This self-contained text presents a consistent description of the geometric and quaternionic treatment of rotation operators, employing methods that lead to a rigorous formulation and offering complete solutions to many illustrative problems. Geared toward upper-level undergraduates and graduate students, the book begins with chapters covering the fundamentals of symmetries, matrices, and groups, and it presents a primer on rotations and rotation matrices. Subsequent chapters explore rotations and angular momentum, tensor bases, the bilinear transformation, projective representations, and the geometry, topology, and algebra of rotations. Some familiarity with the basics of group theory is assumed, but the text assists students in developing the requisite mathematical tools as necessary.

"Quaternions are members of a noncommutative division algebra first invented by William Rowan Hamilton. They form an interesting algebra where each object contains 4 scalar variables, instead of Euler angles, which is useful to overcome the gimbal lock phenomenon when treating the rotation of objects. This book is about the mathematical basics and applications of quaternions. The first four chapters mainly concerns the mathematical theories, while the latter three chapters are related with three application aspects. It is expected to provide useful clues for researchers and engineers in the related area. In detail, this book is organized as follows: In Chapter 1, mathematical basics including the quaternion algebra and operations with quaternions, as well as the relationships of quaternions with other mathematical parameters and representations are demonstrated. In Chapter 2, how quaternions are formulated in Clifford Algebra, how it is used in explaining rotation group in symplectic vector space and parallel transformation in holonomic dynamics are presented. In Chapter 3, the wave equation for a spin 3/2 particle, described by 16-component vector-bispinor, is investigated in spherical coordinates. In Chapter 4, hyperbolic Lobachevsky and spherical Riemann models, parameterized coordinates with spherical and cylindric symmetry are studied. In Chapter 5, ship hydrodynamics with allowance of trim and sinkage is investigated and validated with experiments. In Chapter 6, the ballast flying phenomenon based on Discrete Discontinuous Analysis is presented. In Chapter 7, a numerical study is proposed to analyze the effect of the caisson sliding subjected to a hydrodynamic loading in the stability of the rear side of the rubble mound breakwater"--

This engaging book presents the essential mathematics needed to describe, simulate, and render a 3D world. Reflecting both academic and in-the-trenches practical experience, the authors teach you how to describe objects and their positions, orientations, and trajectories in 3D using mathematics. The text provides an introduction to mathematics for game designers, including the fundamentals of coordinate spaces, vectors, and matrices. It also covers orientation in three dimensions, calculus and dynamics, graphics, and parametric curves.