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Exterior Algebra

This document summarizes a lecture on exterior algebra from a course on discrete differential geometry. The lecture introduced exterior algebra as a language for manipulating signed volumes. It discussed the wedge product for combining vectors into higher-order volumes and the Hodge star for relating volumes of different dimensions. It explained how exterior algebra forms a vector space with properties like the basis k-vectors spanning all possible volumes. The goal is to use these tools to develop discrete exterior calculus for computational geometry problems on meshes.

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Oscar Alarcon Cely
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206 views39 pages

Exterior Algebra

This document summarizes a lecture on exterior algebra from a course on discrete differential geometry. The lecture introduced exterior algebra as a language for manipulating signed volumes. It discussed the wedge product for combining vectors into higher-order volumes and the Hodge star for relating volumes of different dimensions. It explained how exterior algebra forms a vector space with properties like the basis k-vectors spanning all possible volumes. The goal is to use these tools to develop discrete exterior calculus for computational geometry problems on meshes.

Uploaded by

Oscar Alarcon Cely
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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DISCRETE DIFFERENTIAL

GEOMETRY:
AN APPLIED INTRODUCTION
Keenan Crane • CMU 15-458/858B • Fall 2017
LECTURE 3:

EXTERIOR ALGEBRA

DISCRETE DIFFERENTIAL
GEOMETRY:
AN APPLIED INTRODUCTION
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: How many basis 1-vectors?
Q: How many basis 0-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!

DISCRETE DIFFERENTIAL
GEOMETRY:
AN APPLIED INTRODUCTION
Keenan Crane • CMU 15-458/858

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