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Parallel Curve
A parallel of a curve is the envelope of a family of congruent circles centered on the curve. It generalises the concept of '' parallel (straight) lines''. It can also be defined as a curve whose points are at a constant '' normal distance'' from a given curve. These two definitions are not entirely equivalent as the latter assumes smoothness, whereas the former does not. In computer-aided design the preferred term for a parallel curve is offset curve. (In other geometric contexts, the term offset can also refer to translation.) Offset curves are important for example in numerically controlled machining, where they describe for example the shape of the cut made by a round cutting tool of a two-axis machine. The shape of the cut is offset from the trajectory of the cutter by a constant distance in the direction normal to the cutter trajectory at every point. In the area of 2D computer graphics known as vector graphics, the (approximate) computation of parallel curves is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyline
In geometry, a polygonal chain is a connected series of line segments. More formally, a polygonal chain is a curve specified by a sequence of points (A_1, A_2, \dots, A_n) called its vertices. The curve itself consists of the line segments connecting the consecutive vertices. Name A polygonal chain may also be called a polygonal curve, polygonal path, polyline,. piecewise linear curve, broken line or, in geographic information systems, a linestring or linear ring. Variations A simple polygonal chain is one in which only consecutive (or the first and the last) segments intersect and only at their endpoints. A closed polygonal chain is one in which the first vertex coincides with the last one, or, alternatively, the first and the last vertices are also connected by a line segment. A simple closed polygonal chain in the plane is the boundary of a simple polygon. Often the term "polygon" is used in the meaning of "closed polygonal chain", but in some cases it is important to d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minkowski Sum
In geometry, the Minkowski sum (also known as dilation) of two sets of position vectors ''A'' and ''B'' in Euclidean space is formed by adding each vector in ''A'' to each vector in ''B'', i.e., the set : A + B = \. Analogously, the Minkowski difference (or geometric difference) is defined using the complement operation as : A - B = \left(A^c + (-B)\right)^c In general A - B \ne A + (-B). For instance, in a one-dimensional case A = 2, 2/math> and B = 1, 1/math> the Minkowski difference A - B = 1, 1/math>, whereas A + (-B) = A + B = 3, 3 In a two-dimensional case, Minkowski difference is closely related to erosion (morphology) in image processing. The concept is named for Hermann Minkowski. Example For example, if we have two sets ''A'' and ''B'', each consisting of three position vectors (informally, three points), representing the vertices of two triangles in \mathbb^2, with coordinates :A = \ and :B = \ then their Minkowski sum is :A + B = \ which compri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evolute
In the differential geometry of curves, the evolute of a curve is the locus of all its centers of curvature. That is to say that when the center of curvature of each point on a curve is drawn, the resultant shape will be the evolute of that curve. The evolute of a circle is therefore a single point at its center. Equivalently, an evolute is the envelope of the normals to a curve. The evolute of a curve, a surface, or more generally a submanifold, is the caustic of the normal map. Let be a smooth, regular submanifold in . For each point in and each vector , based at and normal to , we associate the point . This defines a Lagrangian map, called the normal map. The caustic of the normal map is the evolute of . Evolutes are closely connected to involutes: A curve is the evolute of any of its involutes. History Apollonius ( 200 BC) discussed evolutes in Book V of his ''Conics''. However, Huygens is sometimes credited with being the first to study them (1673). Huygen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cusp (singularity)
In mathematics, a cusp, sometimes called spinode in old texts, is a point on a curve where a moving point must reverse direction. A typical example is given in the figure. A cusp is thus a type of singular point of a curve. For a plane curve defined by an analytic, parametric equation :\begin x &= f(t)\\ y &= g(t), \end a cusp is a point where both derivatives of and are zero, and the directional derivative, in the direction of the tangent, changes sign (the direction of the tangent is the direction of the slope \lim (g'(t)/f'(t))). Cusps are ''local singularities'' in the sense that they involve only one value of the parameter , in contrast to self-intersection points that involve more than one value. In some contexts, the condition on the directional derivative may be omitted, although, in this case, the singularity may look like a regular point. For a curve defined by an implicit equation :F(x,y) = 0, which is smooth, cusps are points where the terms of lowest de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Osculating Circle
In differential geometry of curves, the osculating circle of a sufficiently smooth plane curve at a given point ''p'' on the curve has been traditionally defined as the circle passing through ''p'' and a pair of additional points on the curve infinitesimally close to ''p''. Its center lies on the inner normal line, and its curvature defines the curvature of the given curve at that point. This circle, which is the one among all tangent circles at the given point that approaches the curve most tightly, was named ''circulus osculans'' (Latin for "kissing circle") by Leibniz. The center and radius of the osculating circle at a given point are called center of curvature and radius of curvature of the curve at that point. A geometric construction was described by Isaac Newton in his '' Principia'': Nontechnical description Imagine a car moving along a curved road on a vast flat plane. Suddenly, at one point along the road, the steering wheel locks in its present position. There ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curvature
In mathematics, curvature is any of several strongly related concepts in geometry. Intuitively, the curvature is the amount by which a curve deviates from being a straight line, or a surface deviates from being a plane. For curves, the canonical example is that of a circle, which has a curvature equal to the reciprocal of its radius. Smaller circles bend more sharply, and hence have higher curvature. The curvature ''at a point'' of a differentiable curve is the curvature of its osculating circle, that is the circle that best approximates the curve near this point. The curvature of a straight line is zero. In contrast to the tangent, which is a vector quantity, the curvature at a point is typically a scalar quantity, that is, it is expressed by a single real number. For surfaces (and, more generally for higher-dimensional manifolds), that are embedded in a Euclidean space, the concept of curvature is more complex, as it depends on the choice of a direction on the surfa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Surface (mathematics)
In mathematics, a surface is a mathematical model of the common concept of a surface. It is a generalization of a plane, but, unlike a plane, it may be curved; this is analogous to a curve generalizing a straight line. There are several more precise definitions, depending on the context and the mathematical tools that are used for the study. The simplest mathematical surfaces are planes and spheres in the Euclidean 3-space. The exact definition of a surface may depend on the context. Typically, in algebraic geometry, a surface may cross itself (and may have other singularities), while, in topology and differential geometry, it may not. A surface is a topological space of dimension two; this means that a moving point on a surface may move in two directions (it has two degrees of freedom). In other words, around almost every point, there is a '' coordinate patch'' on which a two-dimensional coordinate system is defined. For example, the surface of the Earth resembles (idea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hyperbola
In mathematics, a hyperbola (; pl. hyperbolas or hyperbolae ; adj. hyperbolic ) is a type of smooth curve lying in a plane, defined by its geometric properties or by equations for which it is the solution set. A hyperbola has two pieces, called connected components or branches, that are mirror images of each other and resemble two infinite bows. The hyperbola is one of the three kinds of conic section, formed by the intersection of a plane and a double cone. (The other conic sections are the parabola and the ellipse. A circle is a special case of an ellipse.) If the plane intersects both halves of the double cone but does not pass through the apex of the cones, then the conic is a hyperbola. Hyperbolas arise in many ways: * as the curve representing the reciprocal function y(x) = 1/x in the Cartesian plane, * as the path followed by the shadow of the tip of a sundial, * as the shape of an open orbit (as distinct from a closed elliptical orbit), such as the orbit of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ellipse
In mathematics, an ellipse is a plane curve surrounding two focal points, such that for all points on the curve, the sum of the two distances to the focal points is a constant. It generalizes a circle, which is the special type of ellipse in which the two focal points are the same. The elongation of an ellipse is measured by its eccentricity e, a number ranging from e = 0 (the limiting case of a circle) to e = 1 (the limiting case of infinite elongation, no longer an ellipse but a parabola). An ellipse has a simple algebraic solution for its area, but only approximations for its perimeter (also known as circumference), for which integration is required to obtain an exact solution. Analytically, the equation of a standard ellipse centered at the origin with width 2a and height 2b is: : \frac+\frac = 1 . Assuming a \ge b, the foci are (\pm c, 0) for c = \sqrt. The standard parametric equation is: : (x,y) = (a\cos(t),b\sin(t)) \quad \text \quad 0\leq t\leq 2\pi. Ellipses ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rational Curve
In mathematics, an affine algebraic plane curve is the zero set of a polynomial in two variables. A projective algebraic plane curve is the zero set in a projective plane of a homogeneous polynomial in three variables. An affine algebraic plane curve can be completed in a projective algebraic plane curve by homogenizing its defining polynomial. Conversely, a projective algebraic plane curve of homogeneous equation can be restricted to the affine algebraic plane curve of equation . These two operations are each inverse to the other; therefore, the phrase algebraic plane curve is often used without specifying explicitly whether it is the affine or the projective case that is considered. More generally, an algebraic curve is an algebraic variety of dimension one. Equivalently, an algebraic curve is an algebraic variety that is birationally equivalent to an algebraic plane curve. If the curve is contained in an affine space or a projective space, one can take a projection for such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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