Octant
From Free net encyclopedia
- For other uses, see Octant (disambiguation).
An octant is one of eight divisions.
[edit]
Octant in the plane
An octant is one of 8 parts of the Cartesian coordinate plane.
Traditionally wind direction is given as one of the 8 octants (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW) because that is more accurate than merely giving one of the 4 quadrants, and the wind vane typically doesn't have enough accuracy to bother with more precise indication.
[edit]
Octant in 3D
An octant is one of the eight divisions of a Euclidean three-dimensional coordinate system. It is similar to the two-dimensional quadrant and the one-dimensional ray. The n-dimensional generalization is the orthant. Many times, the octant with all three positive coordinates is the "first" octant, but there is no accepted naming convention for the other seven octants.
See Octree.