Talk:Transformation

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The section on mathematical transformation: the operation of moving, scaling and rotating are translations, not transformations. Transformations convert between orthogonal systems. For instance, the Fourier transform and Laplace transform perform transformations. -- Kevin Baas 22:25, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I agree. Strictly speaking, you're probably right; but I've always heard the two terms used interchangeably, at least in the context of 3D computer graphics. Sometimes the word "transformation" is used in discussing scaling/rotation, in order to distinguish it from an x,y,z translation (movement) which involves no rotation or scaling (the current version of the article Translation (geometry), for instance, uses this definition). If you say "apply a scaling transformation" to a graphics programmer, he knows what you mean. Perhaps this point should be made clearer in the article, but I do think the mathematical context should be left in, perhaps with a link to a related article on translation. -- Wapcaplet 05:14, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

p.s. - See also the article on Linear transformation, which also supports the "transformation" terminology. -- Wapcaplet 05:17, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, I concede. (There's also: affine transformation.) I like the change you made and am quite satisfied with it. The only reason I brought the issue up in the first place is because I was looking for a page on transforms such as the Fourier transform or the Laplace transform. I ultimately constructed a List of transforms, but in the process of research I had come across this page, and I wanted the two concepts to be disambiguated. Linear transformation sufficiently disambiguates, and is in a way a more informative terminology in that it clearly specifies that it preserves linear combinations, and that it is, quite definitively, anything that preserves linear combinations. The definition is therefore almost contained completely in the terminology! In any case, I bid you adeui(?sp) my good sir. -- Kevin Baas 08:27, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

In the French system (perhaps Belgian) translation is the term used for "moving". An generally we use the term transformation for moving, scaling and rotating.