Octant
From Wikipedia, the free 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 system.
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 does not have enough accuracy to bother with more precise indication.
[edit] Octant in three-dimensional space
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.
