Re: Short Vectors Versus Long Vectors

On Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:56:03 +0000, MitchAlsup1 wrote:

Then contemplate for an instant that one would want SIMD instructions
for Complex numbers and Hamiltonian Quater[n]ions......

Quaternions yeah! Interesting that they actually predated vector algebra
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M12CJIuX8D4> (from the wonderful “Kathy
Loves Physics & History” channel), and then the mathematicians realized
that it was a bit simpler to separate out the components and deal with
them separately, rather than carry them around all the time. Some of the
“old guard” resisted this move ...

And now they’ve made a comeback in computer graphics, for representing
rotations, particularly of armature “bones” used in posing and animating
characters.

I’m not sure you really need SIMD instructions for quaternions, though.
Consider that the typical use of such instructions is to process millions
or even billions of data items (e.g. pixels, maybe even geometry
coordinates for complex models), whereas the number of bones in an
armature is maybe a few thousand at most.