Tutorial MATLAB : Geometric Algebra
Description
GABLE: A Matlab Tutorial for Geometric AlgebraLeo Dorst, Stephen Mann, and Tim BoumaDecember 3, 2002AbstractIn this tutorial we give an introduction to geometric algebra, using our Matlab pack-age GABLE (Geometric AlgeBra Learning Environment). In the geometric algebra for 3-dimensional Euclidean space, we graphically demonstrate the ideas of the geometric product,the outer product, and the inner product, and the geometric operators that may be formed fromthem. We give several demonstrations of computations you can do using the geometric algebra,including projection and rejection, orthogonalization, interpolation of rotations, and intersec-tion of linear o set spaces such as lines and planes. We emphasize the importance of blades asrepresentations of subspaces, and the use of meet and join to manipulate them. We end withEuclidean geometry of 2-dimensional space as represented in the 3-dimensional homogeneousmodel.1GABLE Version 1.3 (revised tutorial) 2Contents1 Introduction 41.1 Getting started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51.2 Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 The products of geometric algebra 62.1 Scalar product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62.2 The outer product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82.2.1 De nition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...
Informations
| Publié par | Irgu |
| Nombre de lectures | 47 |
| Langue | English |
Extrait
GABLE: A Matlab Tutorial for Geometric Algebra
Leo Dorst, Stephen Mann, and Tim Bouma
December 3, 2002
Abstract In this tutorial we give an introduction to geometric algebra, using our Matlab pack-age GABLE (Geometric AlgeBra Learning Environment). In the geometric algebra for 3-dimensional Euclidean space, we graphically demonstrate the ideas of the geometric product, the outer product, and the inner product, and the geometric operators that may be formed from them. We give several demonstrations of computations you can do using the geometric algebra, including projection and rejection, orthogonalization, interpolation of rotations, and intersec-tion of linear offset spaces such as lines and planes. We emphasize the importance of blades as representations of subspaces, and the use ofmeetandjointo manipulate them. We end with Euclidean geometry of 2-dimensional space as represented in the 3-dimensional homogeneous model.
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Contents 1 Introduction 4 1.1 Getting started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1.2 Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2 The products of geometric algebra 6 2.1 Scalar product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2.2 The outer product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.2.1 Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.2.2 Bivectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2.2.3 Trivectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 2.2.4 Quadvectors? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 2.2.5 0-vectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 2.2.6 Use: parallelness and spanning subspaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 2.2.7 Blades and grades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2.2.8 Other ways of visualizing the outer product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2.2.9 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 2.3 The inner product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 2.3.1 Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 2.3.2 Interpretation: perpendicularity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.3.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2.4 The geometric product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2.4.1 Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2.4.2 Invertibility of the geometric product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.4.3 Duality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2.4.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 2.5 Extension of the products to general multivectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 3 Geometry 20 3.1 Projection, rejection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 3.2 Orthogonalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 3.3 Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 3.4 Rotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 3.4.1 Rotations in a plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 3.4.2 Rotations as spinors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 3.4.3 Rotations around an axis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 3.5 Orientations in 3-space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 3.5.1 Interpolation of orientations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 3.6 Complex numbers and quaternions: subsumed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 3.7 Subspaces off the origin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 3.7.1 Lines off the origin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 3.7.2 Planes off the origin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 3.7.3 Intersection of two lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 3.8 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 4 Blades and subspace relationships 34 4.1 Subspaces as blades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 4.2 Projection, rejection, orthogonal complement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 4.3 Angles and distances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 4.4 Intersection and union of subspaces:meetandjoin 38. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Combining subspaces: examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 5 The homogeneous model 40 5.1 The geometry of imaging: the pinhole camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 5.2 The homogeneous model inC`3,0 43of 2-space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Creating geometric objects: a line as thejoin . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45of points . 5.4 Creating geometric objects: a point as themeet 46 . . . . . . . . . . . . . .of lines 5.5 Distances between offset subspaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 5.6 Summary: the grammar of Euclidean geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 5.7 Euclidean geometry using geometric algebra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
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5.7.1 Napoleon’s theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7.2 Pappus’ theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7.3 Morley’s triangle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Is this all there is? 7 Acknowledgments
A Matlab details A.1 Global variables and naming conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A.2 Graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A.3 Scalars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A.4 Numerics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B Frames C More about drawing routines C.1 Optional color arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D Glossary
49 50 51 52 54
54 54 55 55 56 56 57 58 58
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1 Introduction This is an introduction togeometric algebra, which is a structural way to think about and calculate with geometry. It differs in its nature from linear algebra, constructive Euclidean geometry, differential geometry, vector calculus and other ways you may have learned before; yet it encompasses them all in a natural manner, including some extra things like complex numbers and quaternions. To help understand and visualize the geometry, we have implemented GABLE (Geometric AlgeBra Learning Environment) in Matlab, which we use in this tutorial to illustrate our examples. We believe geometric algebra is going to be useful to all of us applying geometry in our problems in robotics, vision, computer graphics, etcetera. This tutorial is meant to be an easily accessible introduction that gives you an overview of the subject, in a way that helps you assess its power, and helps you decide whether to study it seriously. There are several reasons why geometric algebra is so convenient to work with in geometry, and they all involve the capability to talk constructively about important geometrical concepts (we name them below), which are all embedded as elementary objects in the algebra. Having those available will change your thinking in a strangely powerful way, and geometric algebra then provides the computational tools to implement that new thinking. Obviously, you can’t change your thinking overnight, and so we will demonstrate some of it in the tutorial to give you a flavor. Here are some teasers to get you interested: •subspaces and dependence(Section 2.2.6) Subspaces become elementary objects;a∧b, for instance, is an object that represents the plane spanned by vectorsaandb, anda∧b∧cthe volume spanned by vectorsa,b,c. Linear dependence is then easily expressible:a∧b= 0 implies thataandbare dependent since they do not span a plane. •division by subspaces(Section 2.4.2) In geometric algebra, you can divide by vectors, planes, etcetera. This makes solving equa-tions between geometric objects easier; and it allows interesting coordinate-free construc-tion of geometric relationships. For instance, the component of a vectorxperpendicular to a planea∧bis the volume spanned byx,aandb formula: In, divided by the plane. (x∧a∧b)(a∧b)−1. •parameterization and duality(Section 2.4.3) It is often convenient to represent objects dually: planes by normal vectors, lines by their slope and intercept, etcetera. Mathematicians have told us that these dual objects live in dual spaces (the dual representation of a plane isnota vector but a 1-form, and transforms as such), and this makes their representation a mapping between spaces. In geometric algebra, objects and their duals live in the same algebra, and are algebraically related: ‘dualization’ of an object is simply ‘dividing by the volume element’ of the space it lives in. This has enormous advantages, since this transition to a dual description does not involve a change of space and data structures. •operations are products of vectors(Section 3.4) In geometric algebra, the ratiob/aof two vectors defines the rotation/scaling between them, in all its aspects: both the plane it happens in, and the angle between them, and the dilation (scale) factor. Such characterizations of operations are easy to compose, and can be applied not only to rotate vectors, but (using the same formula) also planes, volumes, etcetera, inn-dimensional space. •complex numbers and quaternions(Section 3.6) Have you ever wondered why quaternions work and what they are? In geometric algebra, we will derive them naturally, and they will not be anything worth a special term. And it will be clear how they generalize to describe rotations inn are just andimensions. They example of the many efficient structures present in geometric algebra that pop up as you use them. Complex numbers, which describe rotations in a plane, are another example. We will find that every planea∧bin Euclidean space has a ‘complex number system’ associated with it, and that this is basically theb/awe mentioned above as the rotation operator for that plane. All these things are connected in a highly satisfying manner (as we hope you will agree when you’re done). •Euclidean geometry(Section 5.2) Euclidean geometry, with its offset lines and triangles, their lengths, intersections, perpen-
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diculars etc., is naturally treated in geometric algebra; the trick is to find an embedding of this geometry into the geometric algebra of a nice space. Geometric algebra can do this by generalizing ‘homogeneous coordinates’. Vectors represent offset points, planes represent offset lines etcetera; and in geometric algebra these are all elementary objects of computation. (In chapter 5, we will illustrate this for 2-dimensional space.) •meet(Section 5.4) There is a powerful operation called themeet, which is the general incidence relationship between geometric entities. Themeetof two lines in 3D, for instance, will return the intersection pointand intersection strength (sine of angle between the lines) if the lines intersect; but it will return alinethey coincide, and it will returnif the Euclidean distance between them if they do not have a point in common. Using geometric algebra, we are capable of defining such operators without forcing the user to split them into cases. •geometric differentiation Something we will not be able to cover in this tutorial, but which is important to applica-tions in continuous geometry, is the capability to differentiate and integrate with respect to geometric objects. It becomes possible to find the optimal orientation explaining a set of measurement data by a standard optimization procedure: define the criterion that you want to optimize,differentiate with respect to rotationand set this equal to zero to find the extremum. Many techniques now become transportable from ordinary optimization theory of functions to the optimization of geometrical objects. You may find in this tutorial lots of things that are familiar, because a lot of this work has been invented before in other contexts than geometric algebra. It is only recently that we understand how it all fits together into one framework, and how important that is for the computer sciences. It now becomes possible to write one book, and one computer program, which contains all the geometry we might ever need. Gone would be the transitions between parts of the real-world problem that are solved by linear algebra, vector calculus, or differential geometry, with the accompanying inefficiency and sensitivity to bugs. All would just be done within the framework of geometric algebra. In this tutorial, we introduce terms gradually, and give you a geometric intuition of their meaning as we go along. We limit almost all of our explanations to the geometric algebra of Euclidean 3-dimensional space, which is denotedC`3,0 geometric algebras are important. Other to computer science as well, but in them intuition is somewhat harder to obtain, and that is the reason we decided not to use them in this introductory tutorial. 1.1 Getting started To get the most out of reading this tutorial, you should read it while running Matlab on a color display, and try the sample code and exercises. The tutorial was developed on Matlab 5.3; it also runs on Matlab 5.2, but it will not run on Matlab 5.1. It has been tested on both Sun workstations and on IBM PCs. This tutorial is not a tutorial on Matlab, and to work more easily with it you should probably read some introduction into Matlab before using our GABLE package. Yet you should be able to run most of the demos described in this tutorial with no supporting documentation; on the other hand, you will need to know more about Matlab to perform the exercises. You can download the software from one of the two following web pages: http://www.wins.uva.nl/~leo/GABLE/ http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/~smann/GABLE/ The instructions there will tell you how to set up the software. You will have to install Matlab separately. Assuming you install GABLE in a directory calledgable, then to use it, add to your Matlab path with theaddpath(’.../gable’)command, where...is the directory path to thegable directory. You may also wish to put this command in your initialization file. See the Matlab documentation for details on both subjects. You can get a quick introduction to the basics of geometric algebra by running the Mat-lab/GABLE commandGAdemo demonstration routine will show you vectors, bivectors,. This and trivectors, as well as introduce the three products of geometric algebra. However,GAdemo is not a substitute for reading this tutorial, as the interpretations and description of how to use the geometric algebra is too involved for the demo script. Thus, after runningGAdemoyou will need to read the remainder of this tutorial.
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1.2 Notation In this tutorial, we will use standard, italic math fonts for our equations. When giving Mat-lab/GABLE code, or specifying Matlab variables in our text, we will use typewriter font. We will elaborate on some further parts of our notation as we introduce it. Further, in our Mat-lab/GABLE code samples, unless otherwise specified, we will assume that you clear the graphics window (usingclf) before running each code fragment. If we have a running example (i.e., where the sample code is separated with explanatory text), the later code fragments will begin with >> %... to indicate that this is a continuation of the previous code fragment (you should not type the ‘...may denote the variables you need to continue from the previous segment.’ in Matlab!). We E.g., >> %... needs X means that the example is continued from the previous fragment, but that you only need the variableXfrom that fragment. Occasionally, we will put comments in our code fragments to indicate what the code is doing; such comments look like >> % === words You do not need to type such comments into Matlab, and in general you do not need to type anything following a percent sign on a line. Sometimes an illustration involves a lot of typing. To save you typing, we have put this code in a routine calledGAblock. Any code sequence that appears in aGAblockwill be prefaced by >> %GAblock(N) whereNdenotes the appropriate section withinGAblock run this sequence, type everything. To after the ’%’ sign on that line. The running of such a code sequence will stop on any line with a ’%% such times, we want you ’. Atto see something, and give you a special prompt: GAblock >> At this prompt, you may type Matlab/GABLE commands; when done, just press return and the block of code will resume running. For a continued code fragment (i.e., one that starts with %...’), you will be prompted to read the tutorial before continuing. quit a ToGAblocksequence early, useGAend. Note that we insert theGAblock you should be understanding eitherprompts for a reason: something in the picture, or you need to understand a result on the screen. At these prompts, you can and should type Matlab/GABLE code to test things, to rotate the view on the screen, etc., until you understand what is being illustrated. By the way, another way to save typing in some of the more repetitive exercises is the standard Matlab feature to use the up-arrow to step through your command history, permitting you to change earlier commands by ‘inline editing’: overtyping, deletion and insertion. 2 The products of geometric algebra This section introduces the basics of the geometric algebra, and gives the GABLE commands for performing the operations. Many of the objects have a graphical representation, and can be displayed on the screen using thedrawcommand. Table 1 summarizes the GABLE commands described in this section and in the rest of this tutorial. We will introduce these routines gradually, as we need them; the table is here just for reference. Some additional commands and details on some of the commands in this table can be found in the appendices. You can also get a summary of commands using the Matlab ‘help gable’ command (assuming you have set up the Matlab path correctly). 2.1 Scalar product The defining elements of geometric algebra are the vectors ofa linear space of vectors over scalars our package, we use an orthonormal basis to represent this linear space, with vectors. In e1,e2, ande3always use integer or real numbers as our scalars., and we will 1You can scale 1Frames are a necessary crutch for input and output; most of our computations will be independent of the frame of representation, in the sense that our equations can be expressed in a coordinate-free manner. For a further discussion of frames, see Appendix B.
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Command Arguments Result e1,e2,e3Basis vectors for generating the geometric algebra I3The unit pseudoscalar +,--,*,/,^ operations of our geometric algebramultivectors The dual(multivector) Compute the dual of a multivector gexp geometric product exponential,(multivector) Theemv grade the grade of a blade ((blade) Return−1 if a multivector) (multivector,n) Return the portion of the multivector that is of grade n innerthe inner product of two multivectors(mv,mv) Take inverseinverse (if it exists) of the multivector the (multivector) Compute isGrade if multivector is blade of grade g(multivector,g) Test join two blades(multivector) Join meet(multivector) Meet two blades norm(multivector) Returns the norm of a multivector. sLog geometric logarithm of a spinor(spinor) The unit the parallel blade of unit length and same sign.(blade) Returns *draw(A) draw object A clfclears the screen GAview([az el]) the view; similar to Matlab ‘view’ Set GAorbiterRotates the view; optional arguments give angle and time GAbvShape(TYPE) Withno arguments, return the shape of bivector With one argument (TYPE=’default’, ’Dutch’, ’Canadian’, or ’American’) set the bivector shape to this type *DrawBivector bivector spanned by v1,v2 as parallelogram(v1,v2) Draw DrawTrivector(v1,v2,v3) Draw trivector spanned by v1,v2,v3 as parallelepiped DrawOuterthe outer product between A and B (A,B) Draw DrawInnerthe inner product between A and B (A,B) Draw DrawGP the geometric product between A and B(A,B) Draw *DrawPoint(P) Draw a point on the tips of a cell array of GA vectors DrawPolylinetips of a cell array of GA vectors a polyline on the (P) Draw *DrawPolygon(P) Draw a polygon on the tips of a cell array of GA vectors *DrawSimplex(S) Draw a simplex given as a cell array of GA vectors *eousogenmoHwarD a simplex given in homogeneous representation(S) Draw Table 1: Table summarizing geometric algebra Matlab commands of GABLE. ‘*’-commands take optional color arguments.
GABLE Version 1.3 (revised tutorial)
Figure 1:draw(3*e1+2*e3); draw(e2)
and add these vectors in the usual manner. For example, to create the vectora= 3e1+ 2e2, you would type >> a = 3*e1+2*e3 ans = 3*e1 + 2*e3 Donotuse spaces in the definition; the particular way we have overloaded the Matlab products may produce the rather cryptic error “Too many input arguments”. Also, do not forget the ‘*’ for the product with a scalar, or Matlab will interpret ‘3e1’ as 3×101= 30. Thenormof a vector is its length (in the standard metric in Euclidean space): >> ... needs a >> norm(a) ans = 3.6056 You can draw a vector (and many of the geometric objects) using the commanddraw. To draw the above vector, type >> draw(a) In the graphics window, you will see a line with an arrow head. If we draw a second vector, >> draw(e2) we see the space get rescaled so that both vectors appear in the same plot. Your screen should now look something like Figure 1. Note that both vectors start at the origin and have their arrow head at the end of the line segment away from the origin. If you would like to understand the spatial relationship better, type: >> GAorbiter and the plot will turn 360 degrees over 10 seconds. You can get smaller rotations by giving it an argument; tryGAorbiter(180). If you give a second argument, you can change the time over which it rotates; tryGAorbiter(180,5) later versions of Matlab (beyond 5.3) the figure. In window contains a button to help you rotate a figure interactively. You can also draw a scalar, though that is not very exciting: >> draw(2) This prints the scalar above any plot you might have made. 2.2 The outer product 2.2.1 Definition Geometric algebra has anouter product, often called awedge product. The outer product has the properties ofanti-symmetry,linearityandassociativity. For vectorsu,v,wwe have: •v∧w=−w∧v, so thatv∧v= 0 •u∧(v+w) =u∧v+u∧w
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•u∧(v∧w) = (u∧v)∧w The outer product of a vectorvwith a scalarα, or of two scalarsαandβ, we define to be equal to the scalar product α∧β=αβandα∧v=αv, and then use associativity to extend that to the evaluation of more involved terms. (The properties of the outer product of two vectors are similar to the properties of thecross productfor two vectors in 3D. Yet it results in a different geometrical object, as we will soon see. We will discuss the correspondence between the two in Section 2.4.3). 2.2.2 Bivectors In GABLE, the circumflex symbol (ˆ) is used to take the outer product of objects. E.g., the outer product ofe1ande2is formed bye1^e2. Here are some to try, and you may want to verify the results on paper using the definition: >> 2^e2 >> e1^e2 >> e2^e1 >> e1^(e1+e2) >> (e1+e2)^(e1-e2) The outcome of the wedge product of two vectors thus contains terms likeα(e1∧e2), etc., which can not be simplified further to vectors or scalars. This outcome is therefore anewkind of object in our geometric algebra, called abivector. As you try more combinations, you find thatanybivector can be expressed as a scalar-weighted linear combination of the standard bivectorse1∧e2,e2∧e3,e3∧e1, formed by outer product between the vectors in the vector basis. This follows easily from the linearity and anti-symmetry properties in the definition of the outer product. These bivectors thus form abivector basis Algebraically,a basis for vectors, other bases may serve just as well).(but as in the case of the set of bivectors in 3-dimensional space is therefore in itself a 3-dimensional linear space. You can view a bivector as adirected area element, directed both in the sense of specifying a plane and an orientation in that plane. In general, withφdenoting the angle fromutovand withithe unit directed area of the (u,v)-plane, we can write: u∧v=|u| |v|sin(φ)i. You recognize that|u| |v|sin(φ) is the directed area spanned byuandv; and asuandvget more parallel, this quantity becomes smaller. As you make the angle negative, the bivector becomes negative (in agreement with the anti-symmetry of the outer product since nowuandv have switched roles); this is what we mean by adirectedarea element. Theiindicates the plane in which this takes place; it is therefore a geometric ‘unit direction of dimension 2’ of what is measured. Graphically we represent the bivector in our package as a directed circle in the bivector plane, with arrows along its border to indicate the orientation. The area of the circle is the magnitude of the bivector. For example, let us draw some vectors, and then draw a bivector: >> clf; draw(2*e1+e3); draw(e2); >> draw(e1^e2) You should see in the graphics window something like Figure 2. PerformGAorbiterto appreciate the spatial relationships better: note that the circle lies in the plane containing bothe1ande2. Another way of appreciating what goes on is to draw the inputs and output of the outer product separately, which can be done by the commandDrawOuter(): >> clf; >> B = DrawOuter(e1,e2) ans = e1^e2 >> GAorbiter This gives two spaces, with in blue and green the two arguments of the product (in that order), and in red the result. You can place the result in the first space for comparison, by: >> %... >> subplot(1,2,1); >> draw(B,’r’);
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GABLE Version 1.3 (revised tutorial)
Figure 2:draw(2*e1+e3); draw(e2); draw(e1^e2)
Try the outer product one1^e1,e1^e2,e2^e1, ande1^(e1+e2+e3), usingdraw()(use the optional color argument to tell the results apart) orDrawOuter()to draw any non-scalar results. You may want to useclfto clear the screen between evaluations. Thenormof a bivector is the absolute value of the area it represents: >> norm((e1+e2)^ 3) e ans = 1.4142 Warning:In one case, our implementation of the outer product gives the wrong answer, namely if you perform the outer product of two scalars:2^3gives8 than(wrong!) rather6 (correct!), since we were not able to overload the exponentiation operator in Matlab for scalars. So when you want to multiply scalars, you will have to use*, as in2*3. See Appendix A.3 for a further discussion of this problem. 2.2.3 Trivectors Taking the outer product of three vectors yields yet another object, which is naturally called atrivector In 3-dimensional space, all such elements must. It is a directed volume element. be multiples of the unit directed volume element, which we denote byI3. (In other words, algebraically the trivectors of a 3-dimensional vector space form a 1-dimensional linear space with basisI3 an orthonormal basis.) Ine1,e2,e3for our Euclidean 3-space, we equate it with the volume spanned by the ‘right-handed’ frame:I3≡e1∧e2∧e3. The unit directed volume I3is often called the(unit) pseudoscalarof 3-dimensional Euclidean space. We have implementedI3asI3of the following expressions by hand, to the outcome . Verify get some dexterity in manipulations with the wedge product on the basis of its definition: >> e1^(e2^e3) >> (e1 e2)^e3 ^ >> e1^e2^e3 >> e3^e2^e1 >> e1^(e1+2*e2)^e3 >> e1^(e1+2*e2)^e1 >> norm(e1^e2^e3) Notice that the trivectore3∧e2∧e1equals−I3: these vectors in this order form a ‘left-handed’ frame. The terms denoting ‘handedness’ are therefore not explicit conventions anymore, they have become part of the computational framework of geometric algebra as the signs of trivectors. Thenormvalue of the volume; if you need a signed scalar denoting theof a trivector is absolute volume of a trivectorT, useT/I3. Conceptually, a trivector represents an oriented volume. Graphically, we represent it by a sphere magnitude of the trivector is represented by the, which we render as a line drawing. The volume of the sphere. To indicate the orientation, we draw line segments emanating from the points on the sphere; the orientation is indicated by whether these line segments go into or out of the sphere. Try
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GABLE Version 1.3 (revised tutorial)
>> draw(I3,’g’) >> draw(-0.5*I3,’r’) Note that it is unfortunately difficult to visualize more than one pseudoscalar using this rep-resentation as it makes the drawing too cluttered. Also note that although we represent pseu-doscalars with a line drawing of the surface of the sphere, the pseudoscalar is actually asolid volume element. 2.2.4 Quadvectors? If you try taking some outer products of four or more vectors, you will find that these are all zero. You may understand why this should be: since only three vectors in 3-space can be independent, any fourth must be writable as a weighted sum of the other three; and then the anti-symmetry of the outer product kills any term in the expansion. For instance: e1∧e2∧e3∧(e1+e2) =e1∧e2∧e3∧e1+e1∧e2∧e3∧e2 = (e1∧e1)∧e2∧e2−e1∧(e2∧e2)∧e3= 0. So the highest order object that can exist in a 3-dimensional space is a trivector. But you can also see that this is not a limitation of geometric algebra in general: if the space had more dimensions, the outer product would create the appropriate hyper-volumes. If all we are interested in is planar geometry, then all vectors can be written as the linear combination of two basis vectors, such ase1ande2; in that case, the highest order object would be a bivector. We would then callI2≡e1∧e2 Ina pseudoscalar of that 2-dimensional space. n-dimensional space,the highest dimensional object in the spacethe pseudoscalar is . It received this rather strange name because it is ‘dual’ to a scalar, as we will see in Section 2.4.3. 2.2.50-vectors In the same vein of the interpretation ofk-vectors as geometricalk-dimensional subspaces based in the origin, we can reinterpret the scalars geometrically. Since these are 0-vectors, they should represent a 0-dimensional subspace at the origin, i.e.geometrically, a scalar is a weighted point at the origin. This is a fully admissible geometric object, and therefore it should not be surprising that it is a member of the basis{1,e1,e2,e3,e1∧e2,e2∧e3,e3∧e1,e1∧e2∧e3}of the geometric algebra of 3-dimensional space. 2.2.6 Use: parallelness and spanning subspaces The outer product of two vectorsuandvforms a bivector. you keep Whenuconstant but makevincreasingly more parallel to it (by turning it in the (u,v)-plane), you find that the bivector remains in the same plane, but becomes smaller, for the area spanned by the vectors decreases. When the vectors are parallel, the bivector is zero; when they move beyond parallel (vturning to the ‘other side’ ofu Try this:) the bivector reappears with opposite magnitude. >> e1^e2 >> e1^unit(e1+e2) >> e1^unit(10*e1+e2) >> e1^unit(1000*e1+e2) >> e1^e1 >> e1^unit(1000*e1-e2) >> e1^unit(10*e1-e2) (unitvector parallel and of the same orientation as its argument, but of unit length.)returns a A bivector may therefore be used as a measure of parallelness: in Euclidean spaceu∧v equals zero if and only ifuandv Noteare parallel, i.e., lie on the same 1-dimensional subspace. that this even holds for 1-dimensional space. Similarly, a trivector is zero if and only if the three vectors that compose it lie in the same plane (2-dimensional subspace). We then do not call them ‘parallel’; the customary expression is ‘linearly dependent’, but the geometric intuition is the same. If the vectors are ‘almost’ in the same plane, they span a ‘small’ trivector (relative to their norms times the unit pseudoscalar). In fact, we can use a bivectorBto represent a plane through the origin: vectorxin plane ofB⇐⇒x∧B= 0.
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