On Sat, 11 May 2024 at 23:45, Emil Dotchevski via Boost
On Sat, May 11, 2024 at 12:56 PM Andrzej Krzemienski via Boost < boost@lists.boost.org> wrote:
Hi Everyone, I landed on this library docs when trying to learn what quarterions are for. Although the library has a vast documentation it doesn't explain what quaternions are and why they are used. When I was taught algebra for the purpose of computer graphics, vectors and matrices were on the table, but no quaternions. The examples show that I need to create a quaternion only to turn it into a rotation matrix. I am pretty sure there has to be more to it.
There's more to it, yes -- but if you know what to do with matrices and vectors, you can think of unit quaternions as a replacement for rotation matrices that provides superior efficiency and interpolation support. If you need examples, anything that has to do with robotics or skeletal animation in video games uses quaternions.
I suppose I can include a sentence like this in the docs, but if you need a tutorial, that's beyond the scope of the docs, I think.
It's perhaps worth considering to add a mention of quaternions avoiding gimbal locks. That's one of the major reasons a fair amount of users reach for them.