Living in a World Built on the Following Axioms...

u + (v + w) = (u + v) + w

u + v = v + u

v + 0 = v

v + (- v) = 0

a (b v) = (a b) v

1 v = v

a (u + v) = a u + a v

(a + b) v = a v + b v

svd

The Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) is an incredibly useful tool with a staggering number of applications in seemingly unrelated fields. In this post I want to write about how the SVD is utilized to determine the orientation of a body segment from the skin markers attached to it. It's an interesting application of the SVD because it has straightforward geometrical interpretation.