Abstract :
This book presents the properties of quaternions and their applications. The text is arranged into three parts. Part I, which consists of 14 chapters, reviews the fundamental properties of quaternions. Part II, which also consists of 14 chapters, presents methodologies for utilizing quaternions in an efficient and effective manner; and Part III uses three chapters to challenge the reader to generalize the properties of quaternions to higher dimensional spaces. The author presents quaternions in an accessible and focused manner. The numerous color illustrations in the book are also available at the author´s companion Web site (www.visualizingquaternions.com), which also offers demonstration software codes. An extensive appendix, 51 pages long, consists of the equations and algorithms presented in the text as well as some useful related material. The small, concise chapters (averaging 12 pages) facilitate the use of the text as a reference. The text could also be used to support a course for students studying computer science, physics, geometry, aerospace control, and robotics. Though targeted at the computer graphics community, kinematicians, geometers, aerospace flight dynamics and controls engineers, astrophysicists, and the like would benefit from adding the book to their working library.
