void diags2_c ( ConstSpiceDouble symmat [2][2],
SpiceDouble diag [2][2],
SpiceDouble rotate [2][2] )
Diagonalize a symmetric 2x2 matrix.
ROTATION
ELLIPSE
MATRIX
ROTATION
TRANSFORMATION
Variable I/O Description
-------- --- --------------------------------------------------
symmat I A symmetric 2x2 matrix.
diag O A diagonal matrix similar to symmat.
rotate O A rotation used as the similarity transformation.
symmat A symmetric 2x2 matrix. That is, symmat has the
form
+- -+
| A B |
| |.
| B C |
+- -+
This routine uses only the upper-triangular
elements of symmat, that is, the elements
symmat[0][0]
symmat[0][1]
symmat[1][1]
to determine the outputs diag and rotate.
diag,
rotate are, respectively, a diagonal matrix and a 2x2
rotation matrix that satisfy the equation
T
diag = rotate * symmat * rotate.
In other words, diag is similar to symmat, and
rotate is a change-of-basis matrix that
diagonalizes symmat. diags2_c chooses rotate so
that its angle of rotation has the smallest
possible magnitude. If there are two rotations
that meet these criteria (they will be inverses of
one another), either rotation may be chosen.
None.
Error free.
1) The matrix element symmat[1][0] is not used in this routine's
computations, so the condition
symmat[0][1] != symmat[1][0]
has no effect on this routine's outputs.
None.
The capability of diagonalizing a 2x2 symmetric matrix is
especially useful in a number of geometric applications
involving quadratic curves such as ellipses. Such curves are
described by expressions of the form
2 2
A x + B xy + C y + D x + E y + F = 0.
Diagonalization of the matrix
+- -+
| A B/2 |
| |
| B/2 C |
+- -+
allows us to perform a coordinate transformation (a rotation,
specifically) such that the equation of the curve becomes
2 2
P u + Q v + R u + S v + T = 0
in the transformed coordinates. This form is much easier to
handle. If the quadratic curve in question is an ellipse,
we can easily find its center, semi-major axis, and semi-minor
axis from the second equation.
Ellipses turn up frequently in navigation geometry problems;
for example, the limb and terminator (if we treat the Sun as a
point source) of a body modelled as a tri-axial ellipsoid are
ellipses.
A mathematical note: because symmat is symmetric, we can ALWAYS
find an orthogonal similarity transformation that diagonalizes
symmat, and we can choose the similarity transformation to be a
rotation matrix. By `orthogonal' we mean that if the rotate is
the matrix in question, then
T T
rotate rotate = rotate rotate = I.
The reasons this routine handles only the 2x2 case are: first,
the 2x2 case is much simpler than the general case, in which
iterative diagonalization methods must be used, and second, the
2x2 case is adequate for solving problems involving ellipses in
3 dimensional space. Finally, this routine can be used to
support a routine that solves the general-dimension diagonalization
problem for symmetric matrices.
Another feature of the routine that might provoke curiosity is
its insistence on choosing the diagonalization matrix that
rotates the original basis vectors by the smallest amount. The
rotation angle of rotate is of no concern for most applications,
but can be important if this routine is used as part of an
iterative diagonalization method for higher-dimensional matrices.
In that case, it is most undesirable to interchange diagonal
matrix elements willy-nilly; the matrix to be diagonalized could
get ever closer to being diagonal without converging. Choosing
the smallest rotation angle precludes this possibility.
1) A case that can be verified by hand computation:
Suppose symmat is
+- -+
| 1.0 4.0 |
| |
| 4.0 -5.0 |
+- -+
Then symmat is similar to the diagonal matrix
+- -+
| 3.0 0.0 |
| |
| 0.0 -7.0 |
+- -+
so
diag[0][0] = 3.
diag[1][0] = 0.
diag[0][1] = 0.
diag[1][1] = -7.
and rotate is
+- -+
| 0.89442719099991588 -0.44721359549995794 |
| |
| 0.44721359549995794 0.89442719099991588 |
+- -+
which is an approximation to
+- -+
| .4 * 5**(1/2) -.2 * 5**(1/2) |
| |
| .2 * 5**(1/2) .4 * 5**(1/2) |
+- -+
2) Suppose we want to find the semi-axes of the ellipse defined
by
2 2
27 x + 10 xy + 3 y = 1
We can write the above equation as the matrix equation
+- -+ +- -+ +- -+
| x y | | 27 5 | | x | = 1
+- -+ | | | |
| 5 3 | | y |
+- -+ +- -+
Let symmat be the symmetric matrix on the left. The code
fragment
symmat[0][0] = 27.0;
symmat[1][0] = 5.0;
symmat[0][1] = 5.0;
symmat[1][1] = 3.0;
diags2_c ( symmat, diag, rotate );
will return diag, an array containing the eigenvalues of
symmat, and rotate, the coordinate transformation required
to diagonalize symmat. In this case,
diag[0][0] = 28.
diag[1][0] = 0.
diag[0][1] = 0.
diag[1][1] = 2.
and
rotate[0][0] = 0.980580675690920
rotate[1][0] = 0.196116135138184
rotate[0][1] = -0.196116135138184
rotate[1][1] = 0.980580675690920
The columns of rotate give the ellipse's axes, after scaling
them by
1 1
---------------- and ---------------
____________ ____________
\/ diag[0][0] \/ diag[1][1]
respectively.
If smajor and sminor are semi-major and semi-minor axes,
we can find them as shown below. For brevity, we omit the
check for zero or negative eigenvalues.
for ( i = 0; i < 2; i++ )
{
smajor[i] = rotate[i][0] / sqrt( diag[0][0] );
sminor[i] = rotate[i][1] / sqrt( diag[1][1] );
}
None.
[1] Calculus, Vol. II. Tom Apostol. John Wiley & Sons, 1969.
See Chapter 5, `Eigenvalues of Operators Acting on Euclidean
Spaces'.
N.J. Bachman (JPL)
-CSPICE Version 1.0.0, 13-JUL-1999 (NJB)
diagonalize symmetric 2x2_matrix
Link to routine diags2_c source file diags2_c.c
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