Interactive Book Figures

Most of the figures in the book were generated by GAViewer, a tutorial program for geometric algebra. They are shots of 2-D or 3-D interactive scenes, and you can increase your understanding of geometric algebra by playing around with them.

For this you need to perform the following installation steps, once:

• download GAViewer (here)
• download the zip-file with the code (.g-files) that generates the figures (here)
• extract them to a "Figures" subfolder of wherever you saved GAViewer

To view figures, you should:

• start GAViewer and load the .g-files directory into GAViewer (in File->Load .g directory).
• on the command line, type:
  
  • FIG(i,j) to view interactive Figure j of Chapter i in the book, or
  • FIG(i) to view the list of interactive figures for Chapter i of the book, or
  • FIG() to get a list of the Chapter names to help you find figures by theme.

Not all the figures in the book were generated by GAViewer, so you may get a warning. In most of the GAViewer figures, some form of interaction is possible. At the very least, you can view a 3D figure from different viewpoints (use the left and/or middle mouse button), but in almost all you can also modify the independent elements through dragging them with 'ctrl-right-mouse-button' on their label or their geometrical representation.

GAViewer as a Tool

Having GAViewer installed allows you to do more, transcending the book figures:

• view results of your own derivations
• test correctness of formulas by trying them in various circumstances
• generate personal figures for your own geometric algebra presentation (please refer properly to GAViewer if you do)

If you are interested in such advanced usage, you should download the GAViewer documentation from the GAViewer download page. Some older GAViewer tutorials and presentations are made available at the GAViewer website.

Copyright 2007-2009 Leo Dorst, Daniel Fontijne and Stephen Mann. Disclaimer: This website is maintained by the book authors. Morgan Kaufmann (an imprint of Elsevier) is in no way responsible for its content.