OpenGL Programming Guide

Appendix GHomogeneous Coordinates and Transformation Matrices

Homogeneous Coordinates

OpenGL commands usually deal with two- and three-dimensional vertices, but in fact all are treated internally as three-dimensional homogeneous vertices comprising four coordinates. Every column vector (x, y, z, w)T represents a homogeneous vertex if at least one of its elements is nonzero. If the real number a is nonzero, then (x, y, z, w)T and (ax, ay, az, aw)T represent the same homogeneous vertex. (This is just like fractions: x/y = (ax)/(ay).) A three-dimensional euclidean space point (x, y, z)T becomes the homogeneous vertex with coordinates (x, y, z, 1.0)T, and the two-dimensional euclidean point (x, y)T becomes (x, y, 0.0, 1.0)T.

As long as w is nonzero, the homogeneous vertex (x, y, z, w)T corresponds to the three-dimensional point (x/w, y/w, z/w)T. If w = 0.0, it corresponds to no euclidean point, but rather to some idealized "point at infinity." To understand this point at infinity, consider the point (1, 2, 0, 0), and note that the sequence of points (1, 2, 0, 1), (1, 2, 0, 0.01), and (1, 2.0, 0.0, 0.0001), corresponds to the euclidean points (1, 2), (100, 200), and (10000, 20000). This sequence represents points rapidly moving toward infinity along the line 2x = y. Thus, you can think of (1, 2, 0, 0) as the point at infinity in the direction of that line.

OpenGL might not handle homogeneous clip coordinates with w < 0 correctly. To be sure that your code is portable to all OpenGL systems, use only nonnegative w values.

Transforming Vertices
Transforming Normals

OpenGL Programming Guide