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If A and B are two vectors, the projection (C) of A on B is the vector that has the same slope as B with the length:

To calculate C use the following property of the dot product:

Using the above equation:

Multiply and divide by | B | at the same time:

In the resulting fraction, the top term is the same as the dot product, hence:

To find the length of | C | with an unknown θ, and unknown direction, multiply it with the unit vector B:

giving the final formula:



taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_projection
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Q: How do you calculate the projection of a vector onto another vector?
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It comes from the Law of Cosines. * * * * * For any two vectors A and B, the projection of A onto B, that is, the component of A along B, is ab.cos(x) where x is the angle between the two vectors. By symmetry, this is also the projectoin of B onto A.

Related questions

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No, a vector component is a projection of the vector onto a specific direction. It cannot have a magnitude greater than the magnitude of the vector itself.


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