Byung-Uk Lee, Stereo Matching of Skull Landmarks, Ph.D.

Thesis, Stanford
Univ., Stanford, CA, 1991.
References
[Cartan 66] E. Cartan, The Theory of Spinors, The MIT Press, Cambridge,
MA, 1966.
[Hermann 70] R. Hermann, Lectures in Mathematical Physics, Vol. I, W.A.
Benjamin, Inc., NY, 1970.
[Hermann 73] R. Hermann, Interdisciplinary Mathematics I: General
Algebraic Ideas, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, NJ, 1973.
[Salamin 74] E. Salamin, Application of quaternions to computation with
rotations, Technical report, Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA, 1974.
Appendix B

Differentiation with Quaternions

The differentiation of a quaternion with respect to a quaternion is similar to the

differentiation of a vector with respect to a vector, which becomes a matrix.
It can be verified easily from Eq. A.1 that

∂ ◦◦ ◦ ∂ ◦◦ ◦ ∂ ◦◦ ◦ ∂ ◦◦ ◦
(rq ) = q , (rq ) = iq , (rq ) = j q , (rq ) = k q
∂r0 ∂rx ∂ry ∂rz
∂ ◦◦ ◦ ∂ ◦◦ ◦ ∂ ◦◦ ◦ ∂ ◦◦ ◦
(rq ) = r, (rq ) = ri, (rq ) = rj, (rq ) = rk
∂q0 ∂qx ∂qy ∂qz

We can use a vector notation for quaternion differentiation.

( )
∂ ◦◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ T
q
◦ (r ) =
q iq j q k q
∂r
∂ ◦◦
(◦ ◦ ◦ ◦
)T
q
◦ (r ) = r ri rj rk
∂q
◦ ◦ ◦
Let t′ be the rotation of a quaternion t by r.
◦ ◦ ◦ ◦∗
t′ = r t r

57
APPENDIX B. DIFFERENTIATION WITH QUATERNIONS 58

◦ ◦
Then we can obtain the differential of t′ with respect to r.
 
◦ ◦
∗ ◦ ◦
 −(r t) + r t 
 
◦  ◦◦ ∗ ◦ ◦ 
 
 (r t i) − r t i 
′
∂t
◦ =  
 ◦◦ ∗ ◦ ◦ 
∂r  (r t j) − r t j 
 
 ◦◦ ◦ ◦

(r t k)∗ − r t k