I thought that I read in the docs that the length was the dot product, but
in fact they say "The resulting vector is perpendicular to the two original
vectors and its length is proportional to the angle between them." In my
experiments, that distance did seem to be at its largest when the vectors
were orthogonal.

Thanks for the clarification.

Josh

Ron Parker wrote:

> On Mon, 04 Dec 2000 10:20:43 -0800, Josh English wrote:
> >Using Warps read me file for his mesh smoother, I find that normalizing
> >the normal vectors of each triangle, then averaging them, works the
> >best. Of course, if you are using the vcross command to find your
> >normals, remember that the length of the resultant vector has a length
> >of the dot product, which will be at it's maximum when the vectors are
> >orthogonal (ie, 90 degrees apart).
>
> It's not the same as the dot product.  The length of the cross product
> vector is A*B*sin(t) and the dot product is A*B*cos(t).
>
> --
> Ron Parker   http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/traces.html
> My opinions.  Mine.  Not anyone else's.

--
Josh English -- Lexiphanic Lethomaniac
eng### [at] spiritonecom
The POV-Ray Cyclopedia http://www.spiritone.com/~english/cyclopedia/

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