An insight into the evolution of rotation operator to quaternion’s. Computer graphics perspective

Rotations are an integral part of various computational techniques and mechanics. The objective in this paper is twofold: first to have a classical insight into the history of quaternions, a problem that Hamilton faced for over a decade and secondly to look at into its applications from computer graphics perspective. Thorough revision of quaternion algebra and its use case as a rotation operator has been presented. A quaternion simulation algorithm has been written and practiced to generate simulation results. Results show that though quaternions supersede Euler angles technically but are tricky to use and control for e.g. when same quaternion is applied on a different vector axis, the particle is not able to reach its initial position and an incomplete rotation effect has been recorded and observed.