Euler Angles
- which is used to rotate about axes. Can suffer from gimbal lock
Gimbal lock
A phenomenon in 3D rotation systems where two of the three rotational axes can align losing one degree of freedom.
Ex. if you hit a large rotation about the Y axis, it could cause the x and z axes to align making rotations about either basically do the same thing.
Rotation Matrices
- Good for transforming points
- Easy to compose and invert
- Can drift from numerical orthogonality
Quaternion
- Compact
- Represent rotations without gimbal lock
- Easy to normalize and interpolate