• ### Popular Now

• 13
• 27
• 9
• 9
• 20

#### Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

# Finding the rotation from one vector to another

This topic is 5664 days old which is more than the 365 day threshold we allow for new replies. Please post a new topic.

## Recommended Posts

How do you do this? Basically, I have a ray facing some direction and an effect that gets generated along the z axis. I want to find the rotation so I can rotate the effect off the z axis and to face in the direction of the ray. [edited by - beoch on September 12, 2002 9:54:52 PM]

##### Share on other sites
Search for dot product

##### Share on other sites
I''m familiar with the dot product. I know I can get the angle with it but I was thinking more along the lines of a matrix transformation that I''ll need to do. It''s probably something simple so I think I will revisit it in the morning with a clear head...

##### Share on other sites
Lets look at this in pieces. You have a ray, say in direction (rx, ry, rz). In effect, you would like to rotate your z axis so that it points toward the ray. That is simple enough. Here''s a partial rotation matrix that will do this:

    [? ? rx]R = |? ? ry|    [? ? rz]

You can test that this does properly transform your z axis (or the effect''s axis) by applying R to the z axis vector:

Effect_axis = R * z_axis_vector

or,

                        [? ? rx]   [0]Effect_z_axis_rotated = |? ? ry| * |0|                        [? ? rz]   [1]which yields:                        [rx]Effect_z_axis_rotated = |ry|                        [rz]

which is what you wanted. So the R matrix is correct as we''ve written it so far.

The problem is that you really need to transform the complete coordinate system of the effect, e.g., the effect''s x and y axes not just z axis. So you need to fill in the rest of that rotation matrix. I won''t try to advise you on how to determine the rotated x and y axes, except that you need to create some rules. You could for example find a rule that says the effect''s x axis always points toward some object. A constraint is that it is perpendicular to the effect''s z axis. Then the effect''s y axis is found by y = z cross x.

I will tell you that once you determine that the effect should act along (rx,ry,rz) and also that its x axis should be (exx, exy, exz) and y axis should be (eyx, eyy, eyz), the complete rotation matrix is:

    [exx eyx rx]R = |exy eyy ry|    [exz eyz rz]

Hope that helps.

Graham Rhodes
Senior Scientist
Applied Research Associates, Inc.

##### Share on other sites
Quaternions. If you have a beginning and ending quaternion, you can interpolate.

Cédric

##### Share on other sites
Yes, of course, quaternions.

Graham Rhodes
Senior Scientist
Applied Research Associates, Inc.

  	D3DXVECTOR3 vDir = g_pCamera->GetDir();				// Vector to rotate to	D3DXVECTOR3 vCurrDir = D3DXVECTOR3(0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f);	// Current direction	D3DXVECTOR3 vRotAxis;	D3DXVec3Cross( &vRotAxis, &vCurrDir, &vDir );			// Find the rotation axis	float fAngle = D3DXVec3Dot( &vCurrDir, &vDir );		// Angle of rotation	D3DXQUATERNION quat = D3DXQUATERNION( vRotAxis.x, vRotAxis.y, vRotAxis.z, fAngle );	// Rotation quaternion	D3DXMatrixRotationQuaternion( &m_rotMat, &quat );		// Rotation matrix