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Quaternion Cheat Sheet and Problems Quaternion Arithmetic: 0 X y Z I 0 X y Z

Quaternions can represent 3D rotations and are composed of 4 coefficients that behave like imaginary variables in polynomials. Quaternion multiplication is non-commutative and defined by the rules for multiplying the imaginary variables. Rotations are represented by unit quaternions, with a two-to-one mapping between unit quaternions and rotations around an axis. A rotation is applied to a vector by converting it to a quaternion, multiplying it by the rotation quaternion, and multiplying the result by the conjugate of the rotation quaternion.

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695 views2 pages

Quaternion Cheat Sheet and Problems Quaternion Arithmetic: 0 X y Z I 0 X y Z

Quaternions can represent 3D rotations and are composed of 4 coefficients that behave like imaginary variables in polynomials. Quaternion multiplication is non-commutative and defined by the rules for multiplying the imaginary variables. Rotations are represented by unit quaternions, with a two-to-one mapping between unit quaternions and rotations around an axis. A rotation is applied to a vector by converting it to a quaternion, multiplying it by the rotation quaternion, and multiplying the result by the conjugate of the rotation quaternion.

Uploaded by

Manuel Cebollo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Quaternion Cheat Sheet and Problems

Quaternion Arithmetic

A quaternion can be represented by a vector of length four: q̇ = (q0 , qx , qy , qz ). We can think


of these qi as the coefficients of a polynomial in three imaginary variables i, j, k, which is
q0 + iqx + jqy + kqz . Quaternion arithmetic is determined by the behavior of these three
imaginary variables:
i2 = −1 j 2 = −1 k 2 = −1 ijk = −1
We can derive lots of other relationships from these, for instance, ij = k, jki = −1, or
ji = −k. Notice that multiplication of the variables is non-commutative: ij 6= ji.
We multiply quaternions just like the polynomials they are, so that

q̇ ṗ = (q0 + iqx + jqy + kqz )(p0 + ipx + jpy + kpz ) = q0 p0 + iqo px + . . . − qx px + kqx py . . .

Notice q̇ ṗ 6= ṗq̇.
We can also write quaternion multiplication using matrices:

q0 −qx −qy −qz


 
 qx q0 −qz qy 
q̇ ṗ =   ṗ = Qṗ
 
 qy qz q0 −qx 
qz −qy qx q0

and
q0 −qx −qy −qz
 
 qx q0 qz −qy 
ṗq̇ =   ṗ = Q̄ṗ
 
 qy −qz q0 qx 
qz −qy −qx q0
Notice the two matrices are different since quaternion multiplication is not commutative.
The dot-product (inner product) of two quaternions is their usual vector dot-product: ṗ · q̇ =
p 0 q 0 + p x qx + p y qy + p z qz .
The conjugate of a quaternion, analogous to the conjugate of a complex number, is q̇ ∗ =
q0 − iqx − jqy − kqz . Notice that q̇ q̇ ∗ = q02 + qx2 + qy2 + qz2 = q̇ · q̇ is the squared length of q̇, as
a vector. A unit quaternion has squared length one.
Unit quaternions have three degrees of freedom. There is a two-to-one correspondence be-
tween unit quaternions and 3D rotations around an axis through the origin. A rotation of
angle θ around the axis (ax , ay , az ) corresponds to the quaternion cos 2θ +sin 2θ (iax +jay +kaz ).

1
Notice that −q̇ = (−q0 , −qx , −qy , −qz ) corresponds to the same rotation as q̇; the inverse
rotation is the conjugate, q̇ ∗ .
To apply a rotation, represented as a quaternion, to a vector v, we represent v as a purely
imaginary quatenion v̇ = ivx + jvy + kvz . Then we compute the rotated vector as

q̇ v̇ q̇ ∗

We compose two rotations by multiplying the two quaternions. So q̇ ṗ is the rotation we get
by first doing ṗ, then q̇.

1 Problems
1. Work through the process of rotating a vector v = (x, y, z) by π around the z-axis
in three dimensional space by writing the rotation as a quaternion q, and computing
dotq v̇ q̇ ∗ using either quaternion multiplication or the matrices above. Do a sanity check
on your result!

2. For a unit quaternion q̇, we have

(q̇ v̇) · (q̇ ẇ) = v̇ · ẇ

Use this identity to verify that (ṗq̇) · ṙ = ṗ · (ṙq̇ ∗ )

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