Octant (solid geometry)

Last updated
Three axial planes (x=0, y=0, z=0) divide space into eight octants. The eight (+-,+-,+-) coordinates of the cube vertices are used to denote them. The horizontal plane shows the four quadrants between x- and y-axis. (Vertex numbers are little-endian balanced ternary.) Cube with balanced ternary labels.svg
Three axial planes (x=0, y=0, z=0) divide space into eight octants. The eight (±,±,±) coordinates of the cube vertices are used to denote them. The horizontal plane shows the four quadrants between x- and y-axis. (Vertex numbers are little-endian balanced ternary.)

An octant in solid geometry is one of the eight divisions of a Euclidean three-dimensional coordinate system defined by the signs of the coordinates. It is similar to the two-dimensional quadrant and the one-dimensional ray. [1]

Contents

The generalization of an octant is called orthant.

Naming and numbering

Right-handed coordinate system (y to back).png
Right-handed coordinate system (z to front).png
Two representations of a right-hand coordinate system. The first one corresponds to the cube image.

A convention for naming an octant is to give its list of signs, e.g. (+,−,−) or (−,+,−). Octant (+,+,+) is sometimes referred to as the first octant, although similar ordinal name descriptors are not defined for the other seven octants. The advantages of using the (±,±,±) notation are its unambiguousness, and extensibility for higher dimensions.

The following table shows the sign tuples together with likely ways to enumerate them. A binary enumeration with − as 1 can be easily generalized across dimensions. A binary enumeration with + as 1 defines the same order as balanced ternary. The Roman enumeration of the quadrants is in Gray code order, so the corresponding Gray code is also shown for the octants.

Octants
Gray
code
xyzBinaryBalanced
ternary
− as 1+ as 1
<><><>
0+++00771313
1++146311−5
3++225577
2+36415−11
7++4136−511
6+5522−7−7
4+6314−115
57700−13−13
Quadrants for comparison
RomanxyBinaryBalanced
ternary
− as 1+ as 1
<><><>
I++003344
II+12212−2
IV+2112−22
III3300−4−4


Little- and big-endian are marked by "<" and ">".

Verbal descriptions are ambiguous, because they depend on the representation of the coordinate system. In the two depicted representations of a right-hand coordinate system, the first octant could be called right-back-top or right-top-front respectively.

See also

Related Research Articles

Analytic geometry Study of geometry using a coordinate system

In classical mathematics, analytic geometry, also known as coordinate geometry or Cartesian geometry, is the study of geometry using a coordinate system. This contrasts with synthetic geometry.

Cartesian coordinate system Coordinate system

A Cartesian coordinate system in a plane is a coordinate system that specifies each point uniquely by a pair of numerical coordinates, which are the signed distances to the point from two fixed perpendicular oriented lines, measured in the same unit of length. Each reference line is called a coordinate axis or just axis of the system, and the point where they meet is its origin, at ordered pair (0, 0). The coordinates can also be defined as the positions of the perpendicular projections of the point onto the two axes, expressed as signed distances from the origin.

Dimension Maximum number of independent directions within a mathematical space

In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a mathematical space is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it. Thus a line has a dimension of one (1D) because only one coordinate is needed to specify a point on it – for example, the point at 5 on a number line. A surface such as a plane or the surface of a cylinder or sphere has a dimension of two (2D) because two coordinates are needed to specify a point on it – for example, both a latitude and longitude are required to locate a point on the surface of a sphere. The inside of a cube, a cylinder or a sphere is three-dimensional (3D) because three coordinates are needed to locate a point within these spaces.

Euclidean space Fundamental space of geometry

Euclidean space is the fundamental space of classical geometry. Originally, it was the three-dimensional space of Euclidean geometry, but in modern mathematics there are Euclidean spaces of any nonnegative integer dimension, including the three-dimensional space and the Euclidean plane. It was introduced by the Ancient Greek mathematician Euclid of Alexandria, and the qualifier Euclidean is used to distinguish it from other spaces that were later discovered in physics and modern mathematics.

Coordinate system System for determining the position of a point by a tuple of scalars

In geometry, a coordinate system is a system that uses one or more numbers, or coordinates, to uniquely determine the position of the points or other geometric elements on a manifold such as Euclidean space. The order of the coordinates is significant, and they are sometimes identified by their position in an ordered tuple and sometimes by a letter, as in "the x-coordinate". The coordinates are taken to be real numbers in elementary mathematics, but may be complex numbers or elements of a more abstract system such as a commutative ring. The use of a coordinate system allows problems in geometry to be translated into problems about numbers and vice versa; this is the basis of analytic geometry.

Superspace is the coordinate space of a theory exhibiting supersymmetry. In such a formulation, along with ordinary space dimensions x, y, z, ..., there are also "anticommuting" dimensions whose coordinates are labeled in Grassmann numbers rather than real numbers. The ordinary space dimensions correspond to bosonic degrees of freedom, the anticommuting dimensions to fermionic degrees of freedom.

Cross-polytope Regular polytope dual to the hypercube in any number of dimensions

In geometry, a cross-polytope, hyperoctahedron, orthoplex, or cocube is a regular, convex polytope that exists in n-dimensions. A 2-dimensional cross-polytope is a square, a 3-dimensional cross-polytope is a regular octahedron, and a 4-dimensional cross-polytope is a 16-cell. Its facets are simplexes of the previous dimension, while the cross-polytope's vertex figure is another cross-polytope from the previous dimension.

Orthant

In geometry, an orthant or hyperoctant is the analogue in n-dimensional Euclidean space of a quadrant in the plane or an octant in three dimensions.

In computer science, an interval tree is a tree data structure to hold intervals. Specifically, it allows one to efficiently find all intervals that overlap with any given interval or point. It is often used for windowing queries, for instance, to find all roads on a computerized map inside a rectangular viewport, or to find all visible elements inside a three-dimensional scene. A similar data structure is the segment tree.

Z-order curve Function which maps multidimensional data to one dimension while preserving locality of the data points

In mathematical analysis and computer science, functions which are Z-order, Lebesgue curve, Morton space filling curve, Morton order or Morton code map multidimensional data to one dimension while preserving locality of the data points. It is named after Guy Macdonald Morton, who first applied the order to file sequencing in 1966. The z-value of a point in multidimensions is simply calculated by interleaving the binary representations of its coordinate values. Once the data are sorted into this ordering, any one-dimensional data structure can be used such as binary search trees, B-trees, skip lists or hash tables. The resulting ordering can equivalently be described as the order one would get from a depth-first traversal of a quadtree or octree.

In mathematics, the E8 lattice is a special lattice in R8. It can be characterized as the unique positive-definite, even, unimodular lattice of rank 8. The name derives from the fact that it is the root lattice of the E8 root system.

Manifold Topological space that locally resembles Euclidean space

In mathematics, a manifold is a topological space that locally resembles Euclidean space near each point. More precisely, an n-dimensional manifold, or n-manifold for short, is a topological space with the property that each point has a neighborhood that is homeomorphic to an open subset of n-dimensional Euclidean space.

STL (file format) File format

STL is a file format native to the stereolithography CAD software created by 3D Systems. STL has several backronyms such as "Standard Triangle Language" and "Standard Tessellation Language". This file format is supported by many other software packages; it is widely used for rapid prototyping, 3D printing and computer-aided manufacturing. STL files describe only the surface geometry of a three-dimensional object without any representation of color, texture or other common CAD model attributes. The STL format specifies both ASCII and binary representations. Binary files are more common, since they are more compact.

Three-dimensional space Geometric model of the physical space

Three-dimensional space is a geometric setting in which three values are required to determine the position of an element. This is the informal meaning of the term dimension.

Introduction to the mathematics of general relativity

The mathematics of general relativity is complex. In Newton's theories of motion, an object's length and the rate at which time passes remain constant while the object accelerates, meaning that many problems in Newtonian mechanics may be solved by algebra alone. In relativity, however, an object's length and the rate at which time passes both change appreciably as the object's speed approaches the speed of light, meaning that more variables and more complicated mathematics are required to calculate the object's motion. As a result, relativity requires the use of concepts such as vectors, tensors, pseudotensors and curvilinear coordinates.

In computer science, a range tree is an ordered tree data structure to hold a list of points. It allows all points within a given range to be reported efficiently, and is typically used in two or higher dimensions. Range trees were introduced by Jon Louis Bentley in 1979. Similar data structures were discovered independently by Lueker, Lee and Wong, and Willard. The range tree is an alternative to the k-d tree. Compared to k-d trees, range trees offer faster query times of but worse storage of , where n is the number of points stored in the tree, d is the dimension of each point and k is the number of points reported by a given query.

Two-dimensional space Geometric model of the planar projection of the physical universe

Two-dimensional space is a geometric setting in which two values are required to determine the position of an element. The set 2 of pairs of real numbers with appropriate structure often serves as the canonical example of a two-dimensional Euclidean space. For a generalization of the concept, see dimension.

Quadrant (plane geometry) coordinate system

The axes of a two-dimensional Cartesian system divide the plane into four infinite regions, called quadrants, each bounded by two half-axes.

Multiview orthographic projection

In technical drawing and computer graphics, a multiview projection is a technique of illustration by which a standardized series of orthographic two-dimensional pictures are constructed to represent the form of a three-dimensional object. Up to six pictures of an object are produced, with each projection plane parallel to one of the coordinate axes of the object. The views are positioned relative to each other according to either of two schemes: first-angle or third-angle projection. In each, the appearances of views may be thought of as being projected onto planes that form a six-sided box around the object. Although six different sides can be drawn, usually three views of a drawing give enough information to make a three-dimensional object. These views are known as front view, top view and end view. Other names for these views include plan, elevation and section. When the plane or axis of the object depicted is not parallel to the projection plane, and where multiple sides of an object are visible in the same image, it is called an auxiliary view.

In mathematics, an abstract cell complex is an abstract set with Alexandrov topology in which a non-negative integer number called dimension is assigned to each point. The complex is called “abstract” since its points, which are called “cells”, are not subsets of a Hausdorff space as it is the case in Euclidean and CW complex. Abstract cell complexes play an important role in image analysis and computer graphics.

References

  1. Weisstein, Eric W. "Octant". MathWorld .