Represenation of a Line and other linear geometrical elements
Represenation of a Line and other linear geometrical elements
Line on a plane
On a plane line is a set of x=(x,y) points, where the following expression holds:
where .
Equivalently:
Now the coefficients of x and of y squared add up to 1, we can define the
unit vector:
and a t scalar:
With these notations the expression of a line is:
(1)
Thus, we are looking for the set of o points, where the projection of the location vector to a given vector is constant.These points are located on a line perpendicular to vector , and the distance of this line from the origin is t.
In order to parametrize the points of this line we look for the unit vector perpendicular to vector . For unique solution let us choose the sign of the determinant of these vectors, now we chose positive:
(2)
Let us have the variable of integration the point s, with that we obtain the l points of an L line as follows:
This description still does not constitute a unique description, as when
, then . We should limit either t to positive numbers, or limit to one of the half-spaces. E.g., when , then either
and
or
and
In the literature both conventions are present.
Linear elements in higher dimensions
The expression for the 2D line on determines sets of points such, that for a scalar and for a unit vector of a sphere of one degree of freedom ( ), the equation holds: and with that equations determine a line with a direction. When we look at the parametrization of it in Eq. (2), s and t are interchangeable, since és determine each other apart from a sign. We could also say, that the parameter of our line is s and , the variable of integration is t, in the direction of .
In an n dimension space, Eq. (1) given that is an expression of a hyperplane perpendicular to the direction vector . Now to specify a single point on this plane, we need a set of direction vectors of a complete base of unit vectors , that we now with an off-hand notation order into matrix , so now multiplied by a vector of we arrive into a point of the plane as follows:
If we choose, like we did before, for the parameters of the linear set , then our expression describes points of the H hyperplane:
On the contrary, if we chose as the parameters the elements of the product , we obtain a line, with points along unit vector with variable of integration t:
Note, that the points of the H hyperplane is determined by n independent information contained in together, while the L line is determined by the product
with 2(n-1) independent elements, since additionally to the unit vector we need the values of vector s as well. To reach a point in space we still need to define the vector base of, bearing no information on the object, it only constitutes the coordinate system choice.