Projection onto a rotor

This construction shows the projection onto the rotors ab and ba. They are defined as:

Pab(x) = ( x - abxba )/2 and Pba(x) = ( x - baxab )/2

(where a and b are unit vectors).

Geometrically, the rotor projection is minus half the chord from x to its rotation.

(Alternatively, you can see it as minus the orthogonal projection of x onto its half-rotated carrier (i.e. the carrier rotated over the same angle as from a to b). A mouthful, but obvious from the picture below.)

Please enable Java for an interactive construction (with Cinderella).

Drag the black point to note that this construction is rotationally covariant, and a or b to find its dependency on the angles.

This concept is essential to the composition of projections.


Created with Cinderella