GPGPU Programming for Games and Science

Chapter 6

Linear and Affine Algebra

6.1 Vectors

Vectors and matrices are the most common entities manipulated in real-

time applications. I assume you are familiar with the algebra and geometry

of these. Although it is important to understand the abstract concepts one

normally encounters in courses on linear or affine algebra, the focus here is on

the concrete computational aspects and on the geometric relationships asso-

ciated with these entities. We will work only with real-valued computations,

so there is no need to have a data type or support for complex numbers.

In practice, vectors are represented as one-dimensional arrays of scalars;

typically, the ...