Questions tagged [rotations]

This tag is for questions about rotations: a type of rigid motion in a space.

In 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional Euclidean space, the rotation is a type of distance-preserving linear transformation that has a fixed point and preserves orientation. In terms of the usual inner product $\langle\cdot,\cdot\rangle$ on $\Bbb R^2$ and $\Bbb R^3$, rotations are the transformations $T$ such that $\langle Tx,Ty\rangle=\langle x,y\rangle$ for all $x,y$, and the determinant of $T$ is equal to 1.

Geometrically, the rotation in $\Bbb R^2$, "spins" the plane around a point without flipping the plane or sliding it. In $\Bbb R^3$, a rotation fixes a line (called the axis of rotation) and "spins" the space around this line (without reflecting or sliding).

More generally, given an inner product space $V$ over a field $\Bbb F$, anything in the part of the orthogonal group connected to the identity can be considered a "rotation." This allows rotations to be defined for $\Bbb R^n$ for $n$ greater than 2 and 3, as well as vector spaces over fields other than $\Bbb R$.

As an example, the space $\Bbb R^4$ with a non-Euclidean metric $(1,1,1,-1)$ is Minkowski space which is a model for special relativity. Rotations still play an important role here beyond that of rotations in the spacial coordinates. For example, Lorentz transformations are rotations which move the time coordinate.

Rotations can also be represented in terms of matrices and the tag often goes with this tag, as questions can pertain to rotation matrices.

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What do eigenvectors and eigenvalues do in rotation operations?

There's some material briefly mentioned the eigenvectors and eigenvalues when it comes to rotation matrices. Can someone give me a neat explanation for what eigenvectors and eigenvalues do in rotation operations?
niebayes
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How can I convert these Euler angles to a 3x3 rotation matrix

I'm working with a set of stereo cameras and having trouble with the math for the rotation calibration in openCV. Each set of cameras comes with a set of calibration data that includes three Euler angles to describe rotation between the left camera…
confused
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Could someone explain why this formula for quantifying distance between Euler angles is giving me an answer higher than expected?

From this paper I'm trying to use a method for comparing the distance between two rotation matrices. I'm using Φ6(R1,R2) = ||$log(R_1R_2^T )$|| (left side, page 159). When I tried this in python the answer this is providing is off by *sqrt(2). Is…
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Compute Roll/Pitch of a Body Rotated Relative to Another

If I have two "ships", a "daughter" ship lying flat on top of a "mother" ship but with a different heading and both ships are then rotated about the roll and pitch axes of the mother ship, how can I calculate the roll/pitch of the daughter ship from…
JC_RMB
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Stability of the rotation of an O'neill cylinder

I have heard that an O'neill cylinder rotating about the central axis of the cylinder can be unstable. O'neill, himself, initially solved this problem by having two adjoining cylinders rotating in opposite directions. Let's take a cylinder with R1…
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Finding angle of rotation

I want to compute the angle of rotation phi which would make the z component of the last vector (0.35) zero - basically putting all of the vectors in the xy plane. I'm familiar with rotation matrices but I'm not sure how to work backwards. I would…
Ga3258
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What are the new coordinates of P after rotation?

Let $P=(x_1,x_2,...,x_n)$ and you want to rotate around the $x_1$ axis by $\theta$, what are the new $P'= (x_1',x_2',...,x_n')$ coordinates? In 2D and 3D it's easy, because we can write up the matrix for rotating and just take the matrix product.
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Why $\frac{\partial \vec{m}} {\partial \omega} = \vec{n}$

Consider a 3 dimensional orthogonal basis $\vec{m}, \vec{n}, \vec{t}$. Consider rotating the $(\vec{m}, \vec{n})$ plane about $\vec{t}$. For further analysis, consider $\omega$ as the anticlockwise angle from some reference datum to $\vec{m}$.…
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With a two-dimensional, take $(2, 1)$ as the center point and consider a transformation with a rotation angle of $45^\circ$, then point $(3, 3)$

Then point $(3, 3)$ transformed into what point? I couldn't solve this problem, I need step by step solution to understand and learn. Does it matter two dimensional or three dimensional? What if rotation angle other than $45^\circ$.?
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Question about definition of rotation on sphere

I just started M.A. and I do not have enough knowledge about aforementioned concepts. I truly want to know everything about this mapping in details. A rotation of the sphere $s^2$ is a map $ r= r_{p,\alpha}$ described by spinning the sphere…
Lida
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Equation of rotated surface

I would like to determine the equation of a disk localized on y-z plane rotated around of the z-axis a $\theta$ angle. Could you tell me how to start? The equation of the disk is $$(y-a) ^ 2 + (z-a) ^ 2 <= r ^ 2$$ Could you tell me how to start the…
F.Mark
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Position of points in an isometric image after rotation

I'm developing a game using isometric images for the units. Each units has weapons represented in red on the first image below. To attach animations to the weapons, I have to be able to calculate the position of each of those points after a rotation…
giviz
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Rotating 3D points around a Z axis

I'm messing around with a script for the game and I'm trying to rotate a house. House consists of multiple objects. I need to rotate a house for certain degrees but I'm not very good at math and need help with the equation. Let's say I have a Z…
user626102
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How to represent a (known and fixed) point in 3D space in a mobile frame of reference (in term of rotation matrices)

Say that I have a fixed point $X$ in the world frame of reference (that I'm gonna call $X^{\{w\}}$). Moreover, I have a flying robot that can be anywhere in this space. Its position in the world is denoted $P^{\{w\}}$. The robot can not only move…
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Rotation axis of molecule

So, I have a long chained linear molecule, consisting of several identical rings. I want to rotate it so its parallel to one of the coordinate axis $($doesn't matter if its $x$, $y$ or $z$$)$. My first approach was to choose the first atom in the…