[Bf-committers] Proposal to Change Mathutils Vectors

[Stephen Swaney]

On Fri, Dec 02, 2011 at 10:47:36PM +1100, Andrew Hale wrote:
> 
> I've written a proposal to change the current handling of transfomations of
> vectors and remove the use cases for 4D vectors. The proposal can be found
> here:
> http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:TrumanBlending#Proposal:_Four_Dimensional_Mathutils_Vectors

I find this disturbing.  I'm not a math weenie and it has been a while
since I have done any heavy-duty computer graphics, but the way I
learned it was 4D homogenous coordinates were *the* basis for matrix
calculations.

I realize we do some hacks like automagically extending 3D vectors so
people don't have to understand what they are doing.  And that in some
cases, we may not be mathematically correct.

However, given the growing emphasis on using Blender for scientific
visualization and robotics, rather than adding some hacks we would be
better off fixing what is broken.  Either that, or switching to numpy
for our math heavy lifting.

Before doing anything with this, we need to get some of our math
experts to sit down and work through the implications.  For me, it has
the warning lights flashing.

-- 
Stephen Swaney			
sswaney at centurytel.net
231-271-7371