Projective Geometry

Table of Contents

1. Affine Geometry

  • Euclidean geometry without the notion of distance and angle.
  • From the Latin affinis, "connected with".

1.1. Playfair's Axiom

  • It is the substitute for the Euclid's parallel postulate.

1.1.1. Axiom

  • Given a line and a point in a plane, at most one line parallel to the line that passes the point exists.

1.2. Affine Transformation

  • Geometric Transformation that preserves lines and parallelism.
  • Basically, a combination of reflection, rotation, scaling, translation, shearing, homothety

1.2.1. Homothety

Scaling with respect to a point.

1.2.2. Properties

  • The number of intersections would not change under covariant affine transformations. See here.

1.3. Affine Space

  • The plane \(z=1\) in three dimensional space is affine.

1.4. Barycentric Coordinate System

1.4.1. Definition

  • Given \(n+1\) points \(\{A_i\}_{i=0}^n\) in a \(n\)-dimensional affine space that are affinely independent, the barycentric coordinate \((a_0:\mathord{\dots}: a_n)\) can be constructed, such that: \[ (a_0+\cdots + a_n)\overrightarrow{OP} = a_0\overrightarrow{OA_0} + \cdots +a_n\overrightarrow{OA_n}. \]

1.4.2. Normalized Barycentric Coordinates

  • Absolute Barycentric Coordinates
    • With the additional condition: \[ \sum a_i = 1. \]

2. Homogeneous Coordinate

2.1. Homegenization

  • It is a process that makes the polynomials homogeneous, that is, every terms having the same degree.
    • Introduce a new variable \( \tilde{z} \) and replace \(x = \tilde{x}/\tilde{z}\) and \(y = \tilde{y}/\tilde{z}\).
    • It extends the domain of the polynomial by one dimension, of which the original space is a projection, projectivizing the original space as the equivalence classes of the larger space.

3. Projective Space

3.1. Finite Projective Space

3.1.1. Fano Plane

\( \mathrm{PG}(2,2) \)

3.2. Real or Complex Projective Space

It is the quotient space of the vector space over a field by the equivalence relation generated by scalar multiplication.

3.3. Projective Plane

3.3.1. Definition

  • A projective plane consists of a set of lines \( L \), a set of points \( P \), and a incidence relation \(\rm I\) with the properties:
    • Given two distinct points, there is exactly one line incident with both of them.
    • Given two distinct lines, there is exactly one point incident with both of them.
    • There are four points such that no line is incident with more than two of them.

3.3.2. Properties

  • Exists points at infinity, and line at infinity.

3.3.3. Pappian Plane

4. Transformations

4.1. Affine Transformation

4.2. Projective Transformation

4.2.1. One-dimensional Real Projective Transformation

\begin{align*} f\colon x\mapsto \frac{ax + b}{cx +d} = \left( \begin{bmatrix} \tilde{x} \\ \tilde{y} \end{bmatrix} \mapsto \tilde{x}/\tilde{y} \right) \circ \begin{bmatrix} a & b \\ c & d \end{bmatrix} \circ \left( x \mapsto\begin{bmatrix} x \\ 1 \end{bmatrix} \right) \end{align*}

The homogenization is canonically a map \( \mathbb{R} \to \mathrm{P}^1(\mathbb{R}) \), and its left inverse (inverse element when multiplied on the left) exists, and right inverse exists on a restricted domain, excluding the point at infinity.

If the inverse of the projective transformation exists, then the inverse of \( f \) exists, on the domain excluding the element which the projective transformation maps to the point at infinity, depending on whether it is left or right inverse:

\begin{equation*} f^{-1}: x \mapsto \frac{dx - b}{-cx + a}. \end{equation*}

5. Projective Dual

5.1. Definition

  • For a projective plane \( C = (P, L ,{\rm I}) \) that consists of points \(P\), lines \(L\), and incidence relation \(\rm I\), the dual plane is: \[ C^* = (L, P, {\rm I}^*) \] where \( \rm I^* \) is the converse relation of \( \rm I \).

5.2. Dual Thoerems

6. Desargues's Theorem

6.1. Statement

Desargues_theorem.svg

  • Two triangles are in perspective axially if and only if they are in perspective centrally.
  • It is true for any projective space defined over a field or division ring, which includes the space in which Pappus's hexagon theorem.

6.2. Proof

  • The plane is a projection of \(\mathbb{R}^3\), and in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) the plane \(\alpha\) containing \(\triangle abc\) and the plane \(\beta\) containing \(\triangle ABC\) intersect in a line. Furthermore, the plane \(\gamma\) containing \(a, b, A, B\) and the planes \(\alpha\), \(\beta\) intersect in a point that is contained in the intersection of \(\alpha, \beta\).
  • Projective Geometry 4 Desargues' Theorem Proof - YouTube

6.3. Desarguesian Plane

7. Reference

Created: 2025-05-04 Sun 14:16