The Plane, the Sphere, and the Ellipsoid
Hi Folks,
We all know that the sphere isn’t the plane, and that an ellipsoid is different as well, but I don’t know if everyone has given so much thought to the practical effects of these differences.
And so I thought it might be a nice idea to catalog some of the interesting things that change when we move from a flat to round model—and it also makes a nice new series for the blog. My planned agenda is:
- Edges on the Ellipsoid aren’t Obvious
- The Sphere is Finite…
- … So Orientation Matters on the Sphere…
- …And yet, Maybe not so Much
- Some Sensible Concepts Are Nonsense on the Sphere
- Bounding Boxes on the Sphere are Strange
- Funny Things Happen to Convex Polygons
I’ll keep this list up to date with links as they bake.
As you can see, I get off easy on the first post: I wrote it some time ago. I’ve also started to touch on the next few topics, but I think there’s more to say. I’ll be scrounging some material from my PDC talk last year, but there should be some new goodies as well.
Cheers,
-Isaac
