Affine transforms - matrix algebra

[Jim Graham]

On 7/24/2012 3:54 AM, Pavel Safrata wrote:
> inverseTransform:
> currently you can do createInverse().transform(...)
> I think it may be better to leave it like that because inversion is an
> expensive operation and user now has to control how often is it called
> and when the inverted matrix can be gc'd. If we introduced some
> convenience method we would probably need some inverse matrix caching
> (with considerable space requirements). But this is already second
> request so it might be worth it. Any other opinions?

For some transforms the inversion is trivial so creating the object is 
fairly expensive.  For example, if it is translation-only then the 
inverseTransform is simply subtracting a bunch of values from the points 
in question.  Many other 2D transforms are not that expensive to 
calculate "on the fly" for small numbers of points and you can save an 
object creation.

> deltaTransform:
> this discussion goes on under "Transform point using
> localToSceneTransform" subject. Please join there.

Ah, I see it came up there.  I'm neutral on whether we need Vector or 
not (not really a 3d-background person, but I see the point).  But, 
whether we have a Vector class and whether it makes sense to interpret 
transform(Vector) as a delta transform, I think we need deltaTransform 
to mirror the existing cases because sometimes you want the 
non-translated transform for other cases as well.  My gut feel is that 
if we have Vector then rather than having a "transform(Vector)" method 
that does a delta transform we should simply name its method 
"deltaTransform(Vector)" and maybe decide not to have a 
"transform(Vector)" method at all - that way we don't have conflicting 
operations for the "transform" name...

			...jim