Plücker coordinates
A line formula_1 in 3-dimensional Euclidean space is determined by two distinct points that it contains, or by two distinct planes that contain it. Consider the first case, with points formula_2 and formula_3. The vector displacement from formula_4 to formula_5 is nonzero because the points are distinct, and represents the "direction" of the line. That is, every displacement between points on formula_1 is a scalar multiple of formula_7. If a physical particle of unit mass were to move from formula_4 to formula_5, it would have a moment about the origin. The geometric equivalent is a vector whose direction is perpendicular to the plane containing formula_1 and the origin, and whose length equals twice the area of the triangle formed by the displacement and the origin. Treating the points as displacements from the origin, the moment is , where "×" denotes the vector cross product. For a fixed line, formula_1, the area of the triangle is proportional to the length of the segment between formula_4 and formula_5, considered as the base of the triangle; it is not changed by sliding the base along the line, parallel to itself. By definition the moment vector is perpendicular to every displacement along the line, so , where "⋅" denotes the vector dot product. Although neither formula_14 nor formula_15 alone is sufficient to determine formula_1, together the pair does so uniquely, up to a common (nonzero) scalar multiple which depends on the distance between formula_4 and formula_5. That is, the coordinates
 (d:m) = ("d"1:"d"2:"d"3:"m"1:"m"2:"m"3)
may be considered homogeneous coordinates for "L", in the sense that all pairs ("λd:"λm), for "λ" ≠ 0, can be produced by points on "L" and only "L", and any such pair determines a unique line so long as d is not zero and d ⋅ m = 0. Furthermore, this approach extends to include points, lines, and a plane "at infinity", in the sense of projective geometry. Example. Let x = (2,3,7) and y = (2,1,0). Then (d:m) = (0:−2:−7:−7:14:−4). Alternatively, let the equations for points x of two distinct planes containing "L" be
 0 = "a" + a ⋅ x
 0 = "b" + b ⋅ x . Then their respective planes are perpendicular to vectors a and b, and the direction of "L" must be perpendicular to both. Hence we may set d = a × b, which is nonzero because a and b are neither zero nor parallel (the planes being distinct and intersecting). If point x satisfies both plane equations, then it also satisfies the linear combination
That is, m = "a" b − "b" a is a vector perpendicular to displacements to points on "L" from the origin; it is, in fact, a moment consistent with the d previously defined from a and b.
"Proof 1": Need to show that m = "a" b − "b" a = r × d = r × (a × b).what is "r"?
Without loss of generality, let a ⋅ a = b ⋅ b = 1.
Point "B" is the origin. Line "L" passes through point "D" and is orthogonal to the plane of the picture. The two planes pass through "CD" and "DE" and are both orthogonal to the plane of the picture. Points "C" and "E" are the closest points on those planes to the origin "B", therefore angles "BCD" and "BED" are right angles and so the points "B", "C", "D", "E" lie on a circle (due to a corollary of Thales's theorem). "BD" is the diameter of that circle. a := BE/ ||BE||,   b := BC/ ||BC||，r := BD,   −"a" = ||BE|| = ||BF||，−"b" = ||BC|| = ||BG||,   m = "ab − "ba = FG,   ||d|| = ||a × b|| = sin(FBG)
Angle "BHF" is a right angle due to the following argument. Let formula_19. Since formula_20 (by side-angle-side congruence), then formula_21. Since formula_22, let formula_23. By the inscribed angle theorem, formula_24, so formula_25. formula_26; formula_27, formula_28 therefore formula_29. Then "DHF" must be a right angle as well.
Angles "DCF" and "DHF" are right angles, so the four points C, D, H, F lie on a circle, and (by the intersecting secants theorem)
"Proof 2":
Let a ⋅ a = b ⋅ b = 1. This implies that
 "a" = −||BE||,     "b" = −||BC||. According to the vector triple product formula,
 r × (a × b) = (r ⋅ b) a − (r ⋅ a) b
Then
When ||r|| = 0, the line "L" passes the origin with direction d. If ||r|| > 0, the line has direction d; the plane that includes the origin and the line "L" has normal vector m; the line is tangent to a circle on that plane (normal to m and perpendicular to the plane of the picture) centered at the origin and with radius ||r||. Example. Let "a"0 = 2, a = (−1,0,0) and "b"0 = −7, b = (0,7,−2). Then (d:m) = (0:−2:−7:−7:14:−4). Although the usual algebraic definition tends to obscure the relationship, (d:m) are the Plücker coordinates of "L". In a 3-dimensional projective space formula_30, let formula_1 be a line through distinct points formula_4 and formula_5 with homogenous coordinates formula_34 and formula_35. The Plücker coordinates formula_36 are defined as follows:
(the skew symmetric matrix whose elements are "p""ij" is also called the Plücker matrix )<br>
This implies "p""ii" = 0 and "p""ij" = −"p""ji", reducing the possibilities to only six (4 choose 2) independent quantities. The sextuple
 formula_37
is uniquely determined by "L" up to a common nonzero scale factor. Furthermore, not all six components can be zero. Thus the Plücker coordinates of "L" may be considered as homogeneous coordinates of a point in a 5-dimensional projective space, as suggested by the colon notation. To see these facts, let "M" be the 4×2 matrix with the point coordinates as columns. formula_38
The Plücker coordinate "p""ij" is the determinant of rows "i" and "j" of "M".
Because x and y are distinct points, the columns of "M" are linearly independent; "M" has rank 2. Let "M′" be a second matrix, with columns x′ and y′ a different pair of distinct points on "L". Then the columns of "M′" are linear combinations of the columns of "M"; so for some 2×2 nonsingular matrix Λ,
 formula_39
In particular, rows "i" and "j" of "M′" and "M" are related by
 formula_40
Therefore, the determinant of the left side 2×2 matrix equals the product of the determinants of the right side 2×2 matrices, the latter of which is a fixed scalar, det Λ. Furthermore, all six 2×2 subdeterminants in "M" cannot be zero because the rank of "M" is 2. Denote the set of all lines (linear images of P1) in P3 by "G"1,3. We thus have a map:
formula_41
where
formula_42 Alternatively, a line can be described as the intersection of two planes. Let "L" 
be a line contained in distinct planes a and b with homogeneous coefficients ("a"0:"a"1:"a"2:"a"3) and ("b"0:"b"1:"b"2:"b"3), respectively. (The first plane equation is Σ"k" "a""k""x""k"=0, for example.) The dual Plücker coordinate "p""ij" is
Dual coordinates are convenient in some computations, and they are equivalent to primary coordinates:
 formula_43
Here, equality between the two vectors in homogeneous coordinates means that the numbers on the right side are equal to the numbers on the left side up to some common scaling factor formula_44. Specifically, let ("i","j","k","ℓ") be an even permutation of (0,1,2,3); then
 formula_45 To relate back to the geometric intuition, take "x"0 = 0 as the plane at infinity; thus the coordinates of points "not" at infinity can be normalized so that "x"0 = 1. Then "M" becomes
 formula_46
and setting formula_2 and formula_3, we have formula_49and formula_50.
Dually, we have formula_51 and formula_52. If the point z = ("z"0:"z"1:"z"2:"z"3) lies on "L", then the columns of
 formula_53
are linearly dependent, so that the rank of this larger matrix is still 2. This implies that all 3×3 submatrices have determinant zero, generating four (4 choose 3) plane equations, such as
 formula_54
The four possible planes obtained are as follows. formula_55
Using dual coordinates, and letting ("a"0:"a"1:"a"2:"a"3) be the line coefficients, each of these is simply "a""i" = "p""ij", or
 formula_56
Each Plücker coordinate appears in two of the four equations, each time multiplying a different variable; and as at least one of the coordinates is nonzero, we are guaranteed non-vacuous equations for two distinct planes intersecting in "L". Thus the Plücker coordinates of a line determine that line uniquely, and the map α is an injection. The image of α is not the complete set of points in P5; the Plücker coordinates of a line "L" satisfy the quadratic Plücker relation
 formula_57
For proof, write this homogeneous polynomial as determinants and use Laplace expansion (in reverse). formula_58
Since both 3×3 determinants have duplicate columns, the right hand side is identically zero. Another proof may be done like this:
Since vector
 formula_59
is perpendicular to vector
 formula_60
(see above), the scalar product of "d" and "m" must be zero! q.e.d. Letting ("x"0:"x"1:"x"2:"x"3) be the point coordinates, four possible points on a line each have coordinates "x""i" = "p""ij", for "j" = 0...3. Some of these possible points may be inadmissible because all coordinates are zero, but since at least one Plücker coordinate is nonzero, at least two distinct points are guaranteed. If ("q"01:"q"02:"q"03:"q"23:"q"31:"q"12) are the homogeneous coordinates of a point in P5, without loss of generality assume that "q"01 is nonzero. Then the matrix
 formula_61
has rank 2, and so its columns are distinct points defining a line "L". When the P5 coordinates, "q""ij", satisfy the quadratic Plücker relation, they are the Plücker coordinates of "L". To see this, first normalize "q"01 to 1. Then we immediately have that for the Plücker coordinates computed from "M", "p""ij" = "q""ij", except for
 formula_62
But if the "q""ij" satisfy the Plücker relation "q"23+"q"02"q"31+"q"03"q"12 = 0, then "p""23" = "q""23", completing the set of identities. Consequently, α is a surjection onto the algebraic variety consisting of the set of zeros of the quadratic polynomial
 formula_63
And since α is also an injection, the lines in P3 are thus in bijective correspondence with the points of this quadric in P5, called the Plücker quadric or Klein quadric. Plücker coordinates allow concise solutions to problems of line geometry in 3-dimensional space, especially those involving incidence. Two lines in P3 are either skew or coplanar, and in the latter case they are either coincident or intersect in a unique point. If "p""ij" and "p"′"ij" are the Plücker coordinates of two lines, then they are coplanar precisely when d•m′+m•d′ = 0, as shown by
 formula_64
When the lines are skew, the sign of the result indicates the sense of crossing: positive if a right-handed screw takes "L" into "L"′, else negative. The quadratic Plücker relation essentially states that a line is coplanar with itself. In the event that two lines are coplanar but not parallel, their common plane has equation
 0 = (m•d′)"x"0 + (d×d′)•x ,
where formula_2
The slightest perturbation will destroy the existence of a common plane, and near-parallelism of the lines will cause numeric difficulties in finding such a plane even if it does exist. Dually, two coplanar lines, neither of which contains the origin, have common point
 ("x"0 : x) = (d•m′:m×m′) . To handle lines not meeting this restriction, see the references. Given a plane with equation
 formula_66
or more concisely 0 = "a"0"x"0+a•x; and given a line not in it with Plücker coordinates (d:m), then their point of intersection is
 ("x"0 : x) = (a•d : a×m − "a"0d) . The point coordinates, ("x"0:"x"1:"x"2:"x"3), can also be expressed in terms of Plücker coordinates as
 formula_67 Dually, given a point ("y"0:y) and a line not containing it, their common plane has equation
 0 = (y•m) "x"0 + (y×d−"y"0m)•x . The plane coordinates, ("a"0:"a"1:"a"2:"a"3), can also be expressed in terms of dual Plücker coordinates as
 formula_68 Because the Klein quadric is in P5, it contains linear subspaces of dimensions one and two (but no higher). These correspond to one- and two-parameter families of lines in P3. For example, suppose "L" and "L"′ are distinct lines in P3 determined by points x, y and x′, y′, respectively. Linear combinations of their determining points give linear combinations of their Plücker coordinates, generating a one-parameter family of lines containing "L" and "L"′. This corresponds to a one-dimensional linear subspace belonging to the Klein quadric. If three distinct and non-parallel lines are coplanar; their linear combinations generate a two-parameter family of lines, all the lines in the plane. This corresponds to a two-dimensional linear subspace belonging to the Klein quadric. If three distinct and non-coplanar lines intersect in a point, their linear combinations generate a two-parameter family of lines, all the lines through the point. This also corresponds to a two-dimensional linear subspace belonging to the Klein quadric. A ruled surface is a family of lines that is not necessarily linear. It corresponds to a curve on the Klein quadric. For example, a hyperboloid of one sheet is a quadric surface in P3 ruled by two different families of lines, one line of each passing through each point of the surface; each family corresponds under the Plücker map to a conic section within the Klein quadric in P5. During the nineteenth century, "line geometry" was studied intensively. In terms of the bijection given above, this is a description of the intrinsic geometry of the Klein quadric. Line geometry is extensively used in ray tracing application where the geometry and intersections of rays need to be calculated in 3D. An implementation is described in
Introduction to Plücker Coordinates written for the Ray Tracing forum by Thouis Jones.
Algebraic definition
In geometry, Plücker coordinates, introduced by Julius Plücker in the 19th century, are a way to assign six homogeneous coordinates to each line in projective 3-space, P3.