Dr. Robert Lopez

Projecting a Point onto a Line

Calculating the distance from a point to a line is a staple of the Lines & Planes section of a multivariate calculus course. The desired distance is the norm of a projection. The projection of the point itself is rarely considered.

The investigations of this webinar look at several different methods for obtaining the actual projection of the given point: first, the projection of a point onto a line, then onto the intersection of two planes through the origin, and finally, onto the intersection of two planes not through the origin. Orthogonal projection and even a non-orthogonal projection are used, and the requisite tedious calculations are implemented in Maple. The abundant visualizations that appear are made possible by the graphical tools in Maple.
Language: English
Duration: 41 Minutes
Related Terms: Multivariate-calculus, Orthogonal, Projection, Point