Thread: Rotating a point using a quaternion, then using an inverse quaternion to rotate back?

  1. #1
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    Rotating a point using a quaternion, then using an inverse quaternion to rotate back?

    I have a function that takes a unit quaternion <w,x,y,z> and a point <x,y,z> and spits out the rotated 3d point.
    void rotate(const float *quaternion, const float *point, float *newpoint)

    This code works OK:
    void rotate(quaternion, point, newpoint)

    I would now like to rotate the point back to where it was originally. I understand this is possible using the inverse of the quaternion (which for a unit quaternion is equivalent to the conjugate, right?):

    This is how I do this this:
    inverse_quaternion[4];
    inverse_quaternion[0] = quaternion[0]; //w
    inverse_quaternion[1] = -quaternion[1]; //x
    inverse_quaternion[2] = -quaternion[2]; //y
    inverse_quaternion[3] = -quaternion[3]; //z
    void rotate(inverse_quaternion, rotated_point, final3dpoint)


    Unfortunately this is not doing what I expect. What am I missing?
    Last edited by fuse; 11-11-2011 at 03:04 PM.

  2. #2
    Just a pushpin. bernt's Avatar
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    What you have will only work if the quaternion is normalized, otherwise you've got to multiply by 1/[magnitude squared] (or 1/[Q dot Q]):
    Code:
    float dot = quaternion[0]*quaternion[0] + quaternion[1]*quaternion[1] + quaternion[2]*quaternion[2] + quaternion[3]*quaternion[3];
    inverse_quaternion[0] = quaternion[0] / dot; //w
    inverse_quaternion[1] = -quaternion[1] / dot; //x
    inverse_quaternion[2] = -quaternion[2] / dot; //y
    inverse_quaternion[3] = -quaternion[3] / dot; //z
    And if this isn't the problem, could you post your code for rotate()? It can be hard to catch mistakes in all the similar-looking arithmetic involved in this sort of stuff.
    Consider this post signed

  3. #3
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    Ok, I modified my multiplication code and now it works out (sans some small math errors. Hmm, guess I better figure out what's going on there! When mapped, the z and y axis are correct, but the x axis appears to be inversed.

  4. #4
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by fuse View Post
    Ok, I modified my multiplication code and now it works out (sans some small math errors. Hmm, guess I better figure out what's going on there! When mapped, the z and y axis are correct, but the x axis appears to be inversed.
    This sounds like a problem with your world matrix or the way you are constructing it from the up, right, and look vectors.

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