Vector summation & multipliction

Hi every1,

was wondering, in the latest version of GH, we do not have components to add or multiply 2 vectors. Does that mean we use general mathematical functions to add / multiply vectors? in that case, even the output that we get is generic numerical output and not vector output...can any1 advise please?

Regards,

Agneesh

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Andrew Heumann on May 15, 2011 at 12:34am

Yes, the standard mathematical components are used to operate on vectors.

Adding two vectors with the standard addition component will result in a vector. Multiplying two vectors doesn't really make sense; you can multiply a vector by a scalar, or take a cross product of two vectors, both of which will result in a vector. You can also take the dot product of two vectors, which will give you a scalar result.

Permalink Reply by Agneesh on May 16, 2011 at 5:03pm

Andrew,

thanks for clarifying. Yea, multiplying 2 vectors really doesnt make sense, what i had meant of multiplication of scalar with vector; in previous versions we had the function F*V.

Having said that, i have never used dot product or cross product, do u think you could give me some examples on where and why we should use dot / cross product?

regards,

Agneesh

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on May 20, 2011 at 3:19am

Hi Agneesh,

dotproducts are usually very common within geometric algorithms. They are especially useful when angles between vectors need to be computed. Cross-products are used to find a vector that is perpendicular to two other vectors.

But they are used all over, just like addition and multiplication of regular numbers is used all over.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Turku, Finland

Permalink Reply by Agneesh on May 24, 2011 at 7:09pm

David,

thank you very much for this information. I might now just do some experiments with these components than!

regards,

Agneesh

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