Rotation around arbitrary axis

[Lord Chaos]

For a rotation around an arbitrary axis (x,y,z), how can I calculate the corresponding rotations around the unit vectors (1,0,0) (0,1,0) and (0,0,1)?

[Sjonny]

My guess is that you first glTransform to x,y,z and then glRotate(x_angle, 1, 0, 0), glRotate(y_angle, 0, 1, 0) and guess the z

[Lord Chaos]

That didn't help much

The thing is, I know the number of radians to rotate around the (x,y,z) axis, and want to know the corresponding number of radians to rotate around the unit axes.

[john]

yep. opengl specifies rotations about an arbitary axis as quaternions. at least... i think this is right. i'm sure i'll be told if i'm wrong.

theres a paper in siggraph '86? or newer than that? about using quaternions in animation. basically, tho', the story is you CAN convert a quaternion to euler angles, although it would probably involve converting it to a rotation matrix and then extracting the euler angles out of that.

i can probably go and find it, if you'd like the formulae, and can't find it on the web. it's around here, someplace.

cheers,
John

[dmy]

if you need to have a matrix that rotates about any axis, i'd suggest to use opengl as a matrix library and create the matrix with glRotate()

instead, if you need a "arbitrary to euler" matrix conversion utility function, take a look here:
http://www.flipcode.com/documents/matrfaq.html

Dolo/\/\ightY

[Lord Chaos]

Thanks, that page was exactly what I was looking for!