Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!ubc-cs!alberta!calgary!ctycal!ingoldsb
From: ingoldsb@ctycal.UUCP (Terry Ingoldsby)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Fractals, and Philosophy of Science
Summary: Quaternians have been used
Message-ID: <308@ctycal.UUCP>
Date: 9 Jan 90 00:20:01 GMT
References: <119.256E54C5@uscacm.UUCP> <1247@becker.UUCP> <6937@lindy.Stanford.EDU>
Organization: The City of Calgary, Ab
Lines: 12

In article <6937@lindy.Stanford.EDU>, rick@hanauma.stanford.edu (Richard Ottolini) writes:
> Don't abandon "new age" mathematics such as fractals nor worship it.
> Sometimes years later something will escape from the closet of recreational
> mathematics and be useful.  Two examples:
...
> (2) In computer graphics, quaternian transforms may be a superior alternative
> to homogeneous coordinates for modeling transformations.  These have been in
> the closet over a century.

If I'm not mistaken, quaternians have been used for at least 10 years in Intergraph
systems.  I think it was initially to save memory on the old PDP-11.  Glad to hear
that there are other benefits.