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When talking about geometric transformations, we have to be very careful about the object being
transformed. We have two alternatives, either the geometric objects are transformed or the
coordinate system is transformed. These two are very closely related; but, the formulae that carry
out the job are different. We only cover transforming geometric objects here.

We shall start with the traditional Euclidean transformations that do not change lengths and angle
measures, followed by affine transformation. Finally, we shall talk about projective
transformations.




 


The Euclidean transformations are the most commonly used transformations. An Euclidean
transformation is either a translation, a rotation, or a reflection. We shall discuss translations and rotations
only.


 



 



 3 J 


We intend to translate a point in the 3 -plane to a new place by adding a vector <
> . It is not difficult
to see that between a point (3 ) and its new place (3 ), we have 3 = 3 +
and  = + . Let us use a
form similar to the homogeneous coordinates. That is, a point becomes a column vector whose third
component is 1. Thus, point (3 ) becomes the following:

Then, the relationship between (3 ) and (3 ) can be put into a matrix form like the following:
Therefore, if a line has an equation ë3  = 0, after plugging the formulae for 3 and , the
line has a new equation ë3 ( ë
 ) = 0.

If a point (3 ) is rotated an angle

about the coordinate origin to become a new point (3 ),
the relationships can be described as follows:

Thus, rotating a line ë3  = 0 about the origin

degree brings it to a new equation:

(ëcos
- sin
)3 + (ësin
+ cos
)  +  = 0

Translations and rotations can be combined into a single equation like the following:

The above means that rotates the point (3, ) an angle

about the coordinate origin and translates
the rotated result in the direction of (
,). However, if translation (
,) is applied first followed
by a rotation of angle
(about the coordinate origin), we will have the following:
Therefore, rotation and translation are not commutative!

In the above discussion, we always present two matrices, ë and , one for transforming
to

(Y
,
=ë
) and the other for transforming
 to
(Y
,
=
). You can verify that the product
of ë and is the identity matrix. In other words, ë and are inverse matrices of each other.
Therefore, if we know one of them, the other is the inverse of the given one. For example, if you
know ë that transforms
to
, the matrix that transforms
 back to
is the inverse of ë.

Let  be a transformation matrix sending
 to
:
=
. Plugging this equation of
into a conic
equation gives the following:

Rearranging terms yields

This is the new equation of the given conic after the specified transformation. Note that the new
3-by-3 symmetric matrix that represents the conic in a new position is the following:

Now you see the power of matrices in describing the concept of transformation.


 



 


  
Translations in space is similar to the plane version:
The above translates points by adding a vector <˜>.

Rotations in space are more complex, because we can either rotate about the 3-axis, the -axis or
the -axis. When rotating about the -axis, only coordinates of 3 and will change and the -
coordinate will be the same. In effect, it is exactly a rotation about the origin in the 3 -plane.
Therefore, the rotation equation is

With this set of equations, letting

be 90 degree rotates (1,0,0) to (0,1,0) and (0,1,0) to (-1,0,0).
Therefore, the 3-axis rotates to the -axis and the -axis rotates to the negative direction of the
original 3-axis. This is the effect of rotating about the -axis 90 degree.

Based on the same idea, rotating about the 3-axis an angle

is the following:

Let us verify the above again with

being 90 degree. This rotates (0,1,0) to (0,0,1) and (0,0,1) to
(0,-1,0). Thus, the -axis rotates to the -axis and the -axis rotates to the negative direction of
the original -axis.

But, rotating about the -axis is different! It is because the way of measuring angles. In a right-
handed system, if your right hand holds a coordinate axis with your thumb pointing in the
positive direction, your other four fingers give the positive direction of angle measuring. More
precisely, the positive direction for measuring angles is from the -axis to 3-axis. However,
traditionally the angle measure is from the 3-axis to the -axis. As a result, rotating an angle

about the -axis in the sense of a right-handed system is equivalent to rotating an angle

measuring from the 3-axis to the -axis. Therefore, the rotation equations are

Let us verify the above with rotating about the -axis 90 degree. This rotates (1,0,0) to (0,0,-1)
and (0,0,1) to (1,0,0). Therefore, the 3-axis rotates to the negative direction of the -axis and the
-axis rotates to the original 3-axis.

A rotation matrix and a translation matrix can be combined into a single matrix as follows, where
the 's in the upper-left 3-by-3 matrix form a rotation and ˜,  and  form a translation vector.
This matrix represents rotations followed by a translation.

You can apply this transformation to a plane and a quadric surface just as what we did for lines
and conics earlier.

ë


 


Euclidean transformations preserve length and angle measure. Moreover, the shape of a geometric object
will not change. That is, lines transform to lines, planes transform to planes, circles transform to circles,
and ellipsoids transform to ellipsoids. Only the position and orientation of the object will change. Affine
transformations are generalizations of Euclidean transformations. Under affine transformations, lines
transforms to lines; but, circles become ellipses. Length and angle are not preserved. In this section, we
shall discuss scaling, shear and general affine transformations.

 


Scaling transformations stretch or shrink a given object and, as a result, change lengths and angles. So,
scaling is not an Euclidean transformation. The meaning of scaling is making the new scale of a
coordinate direction ˜ times larger. In other words, the 3 coordinate is "enlarged" ˜ times. This
requirement satisfies 3 = ˜3 and therefore 3 = 3˜.

Scaling can be applied to all axes, each with a different

Y

. For example, if the 3-, -
and -axis are scaled with scaling factors ˜,  and , respectively, the transformation matrix is:

 

The effect of a shear transformation looks like ``pushing'' a geometric object in a direction parallel to a
coordinate plane (3D) or a coordinate axis (2D). In the following, the red cylinder is the result of applying
a shear transformation to the yellow cylinder:

How far a direction is pushed is determined by a

Y

. On the 3 -plane, one can push
in the 3-direction, positive or negative, and keep the -direction unchanged. Or, one can push in
the -direction and keep the 3-direction fixed. The following is a shear transformation in the 3-
direction with shearing factor
:

The shear transformation in the -direction with shearing factor  is the following:
In space, one can push in two coordinate axis directions and keep the third one fixed. The
following is the shear transformation in both 3- and -directions with shearing factors
and ,
respectively, keeping the -coordinate the same:

Let us take a look at the effect of this shear transformation. Expanding the matrix equation gives
the following:

3 = 3 +

 = + 
 =

Thus, a point (3  ) in space is transformed to (3 +

, +  , ). Therefore, the -coordinate does not
change, while (3 ) is ``pushed'' in the direction of (
, 0) with a factor .

The following is the shear transformation in 3 -direction:

The following is the shear transformation in -direction:

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 ë


 


The general affine transformation matrix has the following form:
Comparing with all previous discussed matrices, rotations and translations included, you will see
that all of them fit into this form and hence are affine transformations. Affine transformations do
not alter the degree of a polynomial, parallel lines/planes are transformed to parallel lines/planes,
and intersecting lines/plane are transformed to intersecting lines and planes. However, affine
transformations do not preserve lengths and angle measures and as a result they will change the
shape of a geometric object. The following shows the result of a affine transformation applied to
a torus. A torus is described by a degree four polynomial. The red surface is still of degree four;
but, its shape is changed by an affine transformation.

Note that the matrix form of an affine transformation is a 4-by-4 matrix with the fourth row 0, 0,
0 and 1. Moreover, if the inverse of an affine transformation exists, this affine transformation is
referred to as  Y
; otherwise, it is Y
. We do not use singular affine
transformations in this course.


  


 


Projective transformations are the most general "linear" transformations and require the use of
homogeneous coordinates. Given a point in space in homogeneous coordinate (3  ) and its image
under a projective transform (3  ), a projective transform has the following form:
In the above, the 4-by-4 matrices must be non-singular (Y
, invertible). Therefore, projective
transformations are more general than affine transformations because the fourth row does not
have to contain 0, 0, 0 and 1.

Projective transformation can bring finite points to infinity and points at infinity to finite range.
Let us take a look at an example. Consider the following projective transformation:

Obviously, this transformation sends (3 )=(1,0,1) to (3 ) = (1,-1,0). That is, this
projective transformation sends (1,0) on the 3 -plane to the point at infinity in direction <1,-1>.
From the right-hand side of the matrix equation
=
 we have

3 = 23 
= 3 
 = 23 

Let us consider a circle 3^2 + ^2 = 1. Plugging the above equations into the circle equation changes it to
the following:

32 + 23 + 2
- 43 - 2  - 2 = 0

Dividing the above by ^2 to convert it back to conventional form yields

32 + 23 + 2
- 43 - 2 - 1 = 0

This is a parabola! (Why?) Therefore, a circle that has no point at infinity is transformed to a parabola that
does have point at infinity.

While projective transformations, like affine transformations, do not change the degree of a
polynomial, two parallel (Y
, intersecting) lines/planes can be transformed to two intersecting
(Y
, parallel) lines/planes. Please verify this fact yourself.

Although we do not use these facts and the concept of projective transformations immediately, it
will be very helpful in later lectures.

  
  




 


We have introduced to you several transformations. We always show to you two forms, one from
to

and the other the inverse from
 to
. In many cases, one may need several transformations to bring an
object to its desired position. For example, one may need a transformation in matrix form Œ=ë bringing
 to Œ, followed by a second transformation = Œ bringing Œ to , followed by yet another transformation
= bringing  to . The net effect of  -> Π->  ->  can be summarized into a single transformation
represented by the product of all involved matrices. Note that the first (
˜ , last) transformation matrix
is the right-most (
˜ , left-most) in the multiplication sequence.

 =  = ( Œ) =  Œ =  (ë) =  ë

Therefore, to compute the net effect, we just compute  ë and use it as a single transformation, which
brings  to .

Let us take a look at an example. We want to perform the following transformations to an object:

1.? Scale in the 3-direction using a scale factor 5 (Y
, making it five times larger).
2.? Followed by a rotation about -axis 30 degree
3.? Followed by a shear transformation in 3- and -direction with shearing factor 2 and 3,
respectively.
4.? Followed by a transformation moving the point in the direction of < 2, 1, 2 >.

Let the scaling, rotation, shearing and translation matrices be ë, ,  and , respectively. With previous
discussion, we have the following, where matrix  =  ë is the net effect:
Therefore, the net effect of transforming a point
of the initial object to the corresponding point

 after the above four transformations is computed as
 = 
=  ë
.