Exterior Algebra

DISCRETE DIFFERENTIAL
GEOMETRY:
AN APPLIED INTRODUCTION
Keenan Crane • CMU 15-458/858B • Fall 2017
LECTURE 3:
EXTERIOR ALGEBRA
GEOMETRY:
Keenan Crane • CMU 15-458/858
Where Are We Going Next?
GOAL: develop discrete exterior calculus (DEC)
Prerequisites: ]
Linear algebra: “little arrows” (vectors)
^
Vector Calculus: how do vectors change?
Next few lectures:
? [
Exterior algebra: “little volumes” (k-vectors)
Exterior calculus: how do k-vectors change?
DEC: how do we do all of this on meshes?
Basic idea: replace vector calculus with computation on meshes.

Why Are We Going There?
•TLDR: So that we can solve equations on meshes!
integrate
•Geometry processing algorithms solve equations on meshes
•Meshes are made up of little volumes
! Need to learn to integrate equations over little volumes to do computation!

Basic Computational Tools
Helmholtz-Hodge
Poisson
homology cohomology
Applications
Smoothing
Vector Field Design

Distance
Meshing
Parameterization
…and more!
Vector Space
Review: Vector Spaces
•What is a vector? (Geometrically?)
finite-dimensional infinite-dimensional
For geometric computing, often care most about dimensions 1, 2, 3, …and !!

Review: Vector Spaces
•Formally, a vector space is a set V together with a binary operations*
“addition”
“scalar multiplication”
• Must satisfy the following properties for all vectors x,y,z and scalars a,b:
*Note: in general, could use something other than reals here.

Vector Spaces—Geometric Reasoning
• Where do these rules come from?
• As with numbers, reflect how oriented lengths (vectors) behave in nature.
Wedge Product
Review: Span
Q: Geometrically, what is the span of two vectors?
Span
Wedge Product (^)
Analogy: span
Wedge Product (^)
v
u^v
u
Analogy: span
Wedge Product (^)
v
u^v
u
Analogy: span
Wedge Product (^)
u^v = v^u
u^v
u
Analogy: span
Key differences: orientation & “finite extent”
Key property: antisymmetry
Wedge Product—Degeneracy
Q: What is the wedge product of a vector with itself?
A: Geometrically, spans a region of zero area.
(*Slight oversimplification. More later...)

Wedge Product - Associativity
w w w
v v v
u u u
u^v^w (u ^ v) ^ w u ^ (v ^ w)
Wedge Product - Distributivity
k-Vectors
u^v^w
The wedge of k vectors is called a “k-vector.”
w
u^v
u
0-vector 1-vector 2-vector 3-vector
Visualization of k-Vectors
Our visualization is a little misleading: k-vectors only have direction & magnitude.
E.g., parallelograms w/ same plane, orientation, and area represent same 2-vector:
v1
v3
u3
v2
u1 u2
(Could say a 2-vector is an equivalence class of parallelograms…)

0-vectors as Scalars
Q: What do you get when you wedge zero vectors together?
A: You get this:
For convenience, however, we will say that a “0-vector” is a scalar value (e.g., a real
number). This treatment becomes extremely useful later on...
Key idea: magnitude, but no direction (scalar).

Hodge Star
Review: Orthogonal Complement
Q: Geometrically, what is the orthogonal complement of a linear subspace?
Notice: orthogonal complement meaningful only if we have an inner product!

Orthogonal Complement
(Note: depends on choice of inner product!)
Example. “What kind of cuisine do you like?”

Option 1: “I like Vietnamese, Italian, Ethiopian, ...”
Option 2: “I like everything but Bavarian food!”
Key idea: often it’s easier to specify a set by saying what it doesn’t contain.
Hodge Star (?)
v u^v
Analogy: orthogonal complement

Key differences: orientation & magnitude
k 7! (n k)
Hodge Star - 2D
?u
??u
u
? ? ?u
Analogy: 90-degree rotation

Exterior Algebra—Recap
w
w
v u^v
v u
u
u^v^w
Basis
Basis k-Vectors—Visualized
basis 1-vectors basis 2-vectors basis 3-vectors
Key idea: signed volumes can be expressed as linear

combinations of “basis volumes” or basis k-vectors.
Basis k-Vectors—How Many?
Q: How many basis 2-vectors? Q: How many basis 3-vectors?
Q: How many basis 4-vectors?

Q: Notice a pattern?
Hodge Star—Basis k-Vectors
Exterior Algebra—Formal Definition
(…don’t worry too much about this!)

Sanity Check
A:
(vector) (2-vector)
Exterior Algebra—Example
A:
Q: What does the result mean, geometrically?

Exterior Algebra—Example
A:
Key idea: in this example, it would have been fairly hard to reason about the
answer geometrically. Sometimes the algebraic approach is (incredibly!) useful.
Exterior Algebra - Summary
•Exterior algebra
•language for manipulating signed volumes
•length matters (magnitude)
•order matters (orientation)
•behaves like a vector space (e.g., can add two volumes, scale a volume, ...)
•Wedge product—analogous to span of vectors
•Hodge star—analogous to orthogonal complement (in 2D: 90-degree rotation)
•Coordinate representation—encode vectors in a basis
•Basis k-vectors are all possible wedges of basis 1-vectors

Thanks!
GEOMETRY:
Keenan Crane • CMU 15-458/858

Exterior Algebra

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DISCRETE DIFFERENTIAL

Basic idea: replace vector calculus with computation on meshes.

•Geometry processing algorithms solve equations on meshes

•Meshes are made up of little volumes

! Need to learn to integrate equations over little volumes to do computation!

Vector Field Design

For geometric computing, often care most about dimensions 1, 2, 3, …and !!

*Note: in general, could use something other than reals here.

A: Geometrically, spans a region of zero area.

(*Slight oversimplification. More later...)

(Could say a 2-vector is an equivalence class of parallelograms…)

Key idea: magnitude, but no direction (scalar).

Notice: orthogonal complement meaningful only if we have an inner product!

(Note: depends on choice of inner product!)

Example. “What kind of cuisine do you like?”

Analogy: orthogonal complement

Analogy: 90-degree rotation

basis 1-vectors basis 2-vectors basis 3-vectors

Key idea: signed volumes can be expressed as linear

Q: How many basis 2-vectors? Q: How many basis 3-vectors?

Q: How many basis 4-vectors?

(…don’t worry too much about this!)

Q: What does the result mean, geometrically?

•language for manipulating signed volumes

•length matters (magnitude)

•order matters (orientation)

•Wedge product—analogous to span of vectors

•Hodge star—analogous to orthogonal complement (in 2D: 90-degree rotation)

•Coordinate representation—encode vectors in a basis

•Basis k-vectors are all possible wedges of basis 1-vectors

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