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Title: Quaternions and Rotation Sequences: A Primer with Applications to Orbits, Aerospace and Virtual Reality
ISBN: 0691102988
Author:
J. B. Kuipers
Publicate Date: 2002-08-19
Publish: 2002-08-19
List Price: $46.95
Average Customer Rating: 5.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $38.13
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $77.04
Amazon Merchant Price: $38.13
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Outstanding
Excellent book. Well written. Clear. Thoughtful.
Plenty of examples. I would highly recommend it!
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2: A math book you can read in bed
There are many other reviews that discuss (and applaud) the merits of Kuipers' treatment of the subject, and I agree with them. Rather than add a "me too", I wanted to treat some of the features of this book that make it approachable.
This book is not written for the layman, you do need a fair grounding in matrix methods, complex variables, and rotations. If you remember the basics you should be fine because Kuipers reminds you of special theorems and properties as they are used. Notation is kept simple and unconfusing.
Of particular note, he uses the margins in a novel way. Most math texts number their equations and refer to them often. The reader spends a lot of time flipping back and forth. Kuipers frequently puts referenced equations, needed properties, and other information in the margins where they are needed. This minimizes the usual back and forth and enables a marginally sophisticated reader to actually read and learn something new in bed.
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3: Very Nice
Book is more or less what all the glowing 4 and 5 stars say it is. I would like to add a 1859 quote from William Rowan Hamilton about his Quaternions in a note to Peter Guthrie Tait (professor and friend of James Maxwell):
"Could anything be simpler or more satisfactory? Don't you feel, as well as think, that we are on a right track, and shall be thanked hereafter. Never mind when."
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4: All four elements...
Quaternions are not as intuitive as 3x3 matrices however this book give a strong understanding of quaternions so that the reader can let go of the 3x3 matrix and successfully, in my case at least, change over to only using quaternions. This has proven useful in my simulations for, and firmware code for, satellite attitude determination and control. In the version I have of this book, there are some mistakes that hopefully will be corrected, but the mistakes are obvious and easy to overlook. I hate quaternions but they are powerful tools in solving real world problems. This book made quaternions interesting and bearable. If you already have a really good understanding of quaternions, this book might help, but it has a long introduction into quaternions so you might want to review the book using the online outline to see if it actually covers more than what you might already know.
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5: Quaternions for you
This is an excellent book, it's right up there with Gilbert Strang's Linear Algebra texts.
Want to understand quaternions and rotational matrices, well this is the book for you. Starts with the basics, coordinated transformations and such, and moves at a reasonable pace into quaternions. Others at work, looking at this book felt that they understood the text. Interestingly these were software engineers that never really gotten basic college calculus. Never could understand why many software people are so light on math. Different part of the brain I guess. Author vs. engineer.
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