Professional Documents
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Math 247:
http://math247.pbworks.com/Learn-and-Use-GeoGebra
Fantastic Step-by-Step Help on How to Use GeoGebra by Dr Linda FahlbergStojanovska. Includes accessing Geogebra properties and methods using Javascript
very cool.
LaTeX online equation editor:
http://www.numberempire.com/texequationeditor/equationeditor.php
Indispensible if you want to put mathematics into Moodle and dont know any
LaTex!
Introduction
Geogebra can do a pretty good job of representing 3D objects, allowing rotations and
dilations to view things from different angles and to zoom in. These notes are based on a
construction by Michele Passante (http://www.mateblog.it/?p=372).
px
First a bit of theory: Let P py be a point in 3D space. The 3D rotation matrices about
p
z
the x, y and z axis are
0
0
1
Rx 0 cos(a) sin(a)
0 sin(a) cos(a)
cos(b) 0 sin(b)
Ry
0
1
0
sin(b) 0 cos(b)
cos(c) sin(c) 0
Rz sin(c) cos(c) 0
0
0
1
where a, b and c are angles between 0o and 360o. The rotation RX will rotate P in the
horizontal plane anticlockwise about the vertical z axis through an angle of a, and
similarly for Ry and Rz. If we rotate P and the x, y, z coordinate frame using R we can
interpret the result as a rotated view of the original point P. This is what we will do in the
construction which follows.
We will write a general rotation as R Rz Ry Rx , which will allow us to rotate about the 3
axes. Note that the 3 rotations do not commute with each other, meaning that if we write
them in a different order the result will generally be slightly different! This will not
matter in terms of using rotations to view 3D objects.
q x
After rotation the point P will have 3D coordinate RP qy
q
z
where the q coordinates now depend on the angles a, b and c. To see what this looks like
in 2D (on the screen!) we simply want two of the coordinates of RP. If we imagine the x
axis pointing out of the screen towards us then the screen coordinates are y, z. This
qy
means we need to plot the point Q
.
q z
This construction is OK, but it is not very flexible. As well as Q we will want to extract
some other information from the 3D point RP, and it is not easy to do in GeoGebra with RP
in this form. Instead we will start with
px
1
0 0
P py px 0 py 1
pz 0 px E x py E y p z E z
0
p
0 1
z
Now RP px RE x py RE y p z RE z . We can now think of px as the component of the
rotated P in the direction of the rotated axis RE x . If we let Wx be the 2D vector with
components the y and z coordinates of REx , and similarly for Wy and Wz then we have
Q pxWx pyWy pzWz
The vectors pxWx , pyWy and pzWz are the components of the rotated P along the rotated
axis as viewed on the screen.
We will construct the rotation of a 3D point P with its axis frame. The point P does not
change its position, just our rotated view of it changes.
press return
1
This represents the column vector Ex 0 . A row of numbers would be written as
0
{1, 0, 0}. We need a column as we want to multiply by a matrix.
Repeat the input for
E_y = {{0}, {1}, {0}}
and
E_z = {{0}, {0}, {1}}
3. Put in the rotation matrices Rx, Ry and Rz and the dilation matrix D
In the input line type
R_x = {{1, 0, 0}, {0, cos(a), -sin(a)}, {0, sin(a), cos(a)}}
R_y = {{cos(b), 0, -sin(b)}, {0, 1, 0}, {sin(b), 0, cos(b)}}
R_z = {{cos(c), -sin(c), 0}, {sin(c), cos(c), 0}, {0, 0, 1}}
press return
press return
press return
press return
press return
This will rotate (and dilate) the unit vector E_x which is pointing along the x-axis.
Repeat for
V_y = R*E_y
and
V_z = R*E_z
Now we need to see what that looks like on the screen. The vectors V_x, V_y and V_z are
column vectors. As mentioned in the introduction we want the 2nd and 3rd components of
our 3D vectors to create a point on the screen.
This is probably a good point to turn off labeling. Go to Options, labeling and click on No
New Objects.
In the input line type
W_x = (Element[Element[V_x,2],1], Element[Element[V_x,3],1])
and press return.
Element[V_x,2] is the second number in V_x, which is itself a list { } consisting of 1
number. We want the first number in that list. The round brackets in W_x mean that we
now have a point in 2D which you should see on the screen.
Repeat for
W_y = (Element[Element[V_y,2],1], Element[Element[V_y,3],1])
W_z = (Element[Element[V_z,2],1], Element[Element[V_z,3],1])
In the input line type
u = vector[d*W_x]
press return
Right click each side of this polygon and click off Show Object.
Use the Panning Tool (click it then drag on the screen) if you want to centre your
construction a little. Click the little arrow on the panning tool to bring up the Zoom In
and Zoom Out Tools (click then click the screen) if you want your picture bigger or
smaller.
We can now put other objects on our axes frame like points, lines and planes and see
what they look like in 3D. We can also make geometric objects e.g. a cube made up of
corners (points) and faces (polygons).
The Plane through 3 points
Creating constructions which require several points is most efficiently done using
GeoGebras spreadsheet capability.
We will construct the plane through (2, 0, 0), (0, 3, 0), (0, 0, 6) which has the equation
3x 2y z 6
In GeoGebra go to View, Spreadsheet View and also click off Algebra View. Use the
Panning Tool to move your axes if required. Type this,
Each row is a point on our plane. If you want to see a
different plane through 3 other points simply change
these numbers.
As discussed in the introduction a point P with coordinates p x, py, pz will have the screen
coordinate Q pxWx pyWy pzWz . In the input line type
D2=A2*W_x+B2*W_y+C2*W_z
Click on cell D2. Click and hold the mouse on the small blue square in the bottom right
hand corner of D2 (the fill handle) then drag down to cell D4. You should see 3 points on
your coordinate axes. You may need to make the dilation value d smaller to see them all!
In the input line type
Polygon[D2, D3, D4]
Which is a triangular section of our plane through the 3 points.
A vector equation of the plane
If P1, P2 and P3 are 3 points defining a plane then P2 P1 and P3 P1 are vectors from the
origin lying parallel to the surface of the plane. If s and t are numbers then