In this article, certain applications of the dual quaternion algebra to 2D geometry are discussed.
At this present time, the article is focused on a 4-dimensional subalgebra of the dual quaternions which will later be called the planar quaternions.
The planar quaternions make up a four-dimensional algebra over the real numbers.
[1][2] Their primary application is in representing rigid body motions in 2D space.
Unlike multiplication of dual numbers or of complex numbers, that of planar quaternions is non-commutative.
In this article, the set of planar quaternions is denoted
are real numbers;
is a dual number that squares to zero; and
are the standard basis elements of the quaternions.
Multiplication is done in the same way as with the quaternions, but with the additional rule that
comparable to an infinitesimal number.
It follows that the multiplicative inverses of planar quaternions are given by
forms a basis of the vector space of planar quaternions, where the scalars are real numbers.
The magnitude of a planar quaternion
For applications in computer graphics, the number
A planar quaternion
has the following representation as a 2x2 complex matrix:
It can also be represented as a 2×2 dual number matrix:
The above two matrix representations are related to the Möbius transformations and Laguerre transformations respectively.
The algebra discussed in this article is sometimes called the dual complex numbers.
This may be a misleading name because it suggests that the algebra should take the form of either: An algebra meeting either description exists.
(This is due to the fact that the tensor product of algebras is commutative up to isomorphism).
This algebra can be denoted as
The resulting algebra has a commutative product and is not discussed any further.
be a unit-length planar quaternion, i.e. we must have that
The Euclidean plane can be represented by the set
represents the point on the Euclidean plane with Cartesian coordinate
We have the following (multiple) polar forms for
: A principled construction of the planar quaternions can be found by first noticing that they are a subset of the dual-quaternions.
There are two geometric interpretations of the dual-quaternions, both of which can be used to derive the action of the planar quaternions on the plane: