About QuickDraw 3D Mathematical Utilities
QuickDraw 3D provides a large number of utility functions for operating on basic mathematical objects such as points, vectors, matrices, and quaternions. You can use these utilities to
Many of these functions might be implemented as C language macros. As a result, you should avoid such operations as applying the auto-increment operator (++) to function parameters.
- set the components of points and vectors
- convert dimensions of points and vectors
- subtract points from points
- calculate distances between points
- determine point-relative ratios
- add and subtract points and vectors
- scale vectors
- determine the lengths of vectors
- normalize vectors
- add and subtract vectors
- determine vector cross products and dot products
- transform points and vectors
- negate vectors
- convert points from Cartesian form to polar or spherical form
- determine affine combinations of points
- manipulate matrices
- set up transformation matrices
- calculate trigonometric ratios
- manipulate quaternions
QuickDraw 3D also supplies functions that you can use to manage bounding boxes and spheres for any kind of QuickDraw 3D object.