Talk:Gimbal lock

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Regarding message sent to me vis-a-vis "Gimbal Lock".


I was the one who altered the definition, as it was I who was the one who posted it in the first place. I needed to clarify my definition, as "gimbal lock" can be rather hard to visualise.

James Cloninger

You can do this without removing the formatting and links that I've placed there, simply leave the formatting intact without removing everything before you make a new edit. Thanks Dysprosia 09:58, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Re: Gimbal Lock -- follow-up

You can do this without removing the formatting and links that I've placed there, simply leave the formatting intact without removing everything before you make a new edit.

Okay, my bad. :)


James.

[edit] Hard to follow

It is still hard to follow as it stands. More math and other content is needed. Some possibilities include the outside observer and the observer moving along with the rotations. Hackwrench 17:12, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

It's been a while, but I've encountered it a few years back dealing with computer animation. I'll dig up some info and add a mathematical explanation explaining how the Euler angles get fixed to a plane, and how quaternions avoid this. It's tricky to explain because it doesn't occur statically, only dynamically. I like the article though, and don't want to drown it in maths so I'll try to be concise. The article does a great job with the plane example. Nazlfrag 12:10, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image of rotating gimbal

I rendered an image of rotating gimbal: Image:Rotating gimbal-xyz.gif. Perhaps you can use it for the article or so? :-) --89.49.208.102 10:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC) (de:RokerHRO ≡ commons:RokerHRO)

For the purposes of illustrating gimbal lock, there is already a better basis: Image:Gyroscope operation.gif --gwaihir 10:32, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Erroneous Definition

From the article: It may also be described as the situation when all three gyros hit the limits of their ability to move within the sensing mechanism - they hit hard stops and stop moving around.

There's two things wrong with this sentence. First, the previous definition cannot "also be described" in this manner -- this sentence describes a completely different phenomenon. Secondly, this phenomenon -- gyros hitting their stops is not what people mean when they refer to gimbal lock.

So I'm deleting it. Tom Duff 03:52, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clarify a few things

Speaking as someone with very little knowledge of flight dynamics (my knowledge of gimbal lock is basically limited to seeing Apollo 13, where it was established that it is a Bad Thing), I think this article needs a bit more information. For example, it would help to have a bit more information, even a sentence or two, on what gimbals are, rather than directing the helpless reader to another article. Also, is gimbal lock really a "lock"? Once the gyroscopes are aligned, do they rotate together no matter what? Seems like the article Gimbal has more information about gimbal lock than this one does. Sloverlord (talk) 02:35, 30 November 2007 (UTC)