Library/Geometry/Projective geometry/Projective transformations of space

Projective transformations of space

Overview
Important

A projective transformation of space is a special way to map points, lines, and planes in projective space to other points, lines, and planes, so that straight lines remain straight and incidences (like points lying on a line) are preserved. These transformations are also called projectivities or collineations.

Important properties

  • Projective transformations map lines to lines and planes to planes.

  • They preserve incidence: if a point lies on a line before the transformation, it will still lie on the image of that line after the transformation.

  • Parallelism and distances are not preserved, but cross-ratios of four collinear points are preserved.

  • Any projective transformation can be represented using matrices and homogeneous coordinates.