A shape is the form of an object or its external boundary, outline, or external surface, as opposed to other properties such as color, texture or material type.
Classification of simple shapes
Some simple shapes can be put into broad categories . For instance,
are classified according to their number of edges as
,
,
, etc. Each of these is divided into smaller categories; triangles can be
equilateral,
isosceles,
obtuse triangle, acute,
Triangle, etc. while quadrilaterals can be
,
rhombi,
trapezoids,
squares, etc.
Other common shapes are points, lines, planes, and conic sections such as , , and .
Among the most common 3-dimensional shapes are polyhedra, which are shapes with flat faces; , which are egg-shaped or sphere-shaped objects; cylinders; and .
If an object falls into one of these categories exactly or even approximately, we can use it to describe the shape of the object. Thus, we say that the shape of a manhole cover is a disk, because it is approximately the same geometric object as an actual geometric disk.
Shape in geometry
There are several ways to compare the shapes of two objects:
-
Congruence: Two objects are congruent if one can be transformed into the other by a sequence of rotations, translations, and/or reflections.
-
Similarity: Two objects are similar if one can be transformed into the other by a uniform scaling, together with a sequence of rotations, translations, and/or reflections.
-
Isotopy: Two objects are isotopic if one can be transformed into the other by a sequence of deformations that do not tear the object or put holes in it.
Sometimes, two similar or congruent objects may be regarded as having a different shape if a reflection is required to transform one into the other. For instance, the letters " b" and " d" are a reflection of each other, and hence they are congruent and similar, but in some contexts they are not regarded as having the same shape. Sometimes, only the outline or external boundary of the object is considered to determine its shape. For instance, a hollow sphere may be considered to have the same shape as a solid sphere. Procrustes analysis is used in many sciences to determine whether or not two objects have the same shape, or to measure the difference between two shapes. In advanced mathematics, quasi-isometry can be used as a criterion to state that two shapes are approximately the same.
Simple shapes can often be classified into basic geometry objects such as a point, a line, a curve, a plane, a plane figure (e.g. square or circle), or a solid figure (e.g. cube or sphere). However, most shapes occurring in the physical world are complex. Some, such as plant structures and coastlines, may be so complicated as to defy traditional mathematical description – in which case they may be analyzed by differential geometry, or as .
Equivalence of shapes
In geometry, two subsets of a
Euclidean space have the same shape if one can be transformed to the other by a combination of translations,
(together also called rigid transformations), and uniform scalings. In other words, the
shape of a set of points is all the geometrical information that is invariant to translations, rotations, and size changes. Having the same shape is an equivalence relation, and accordingly a precise mathematical definition of the notion of shape can be given as being an equivalence class of subsets of a Euclidean space having the same shape.
Mathematician and statistician David George Kendall writes:
In this paper ‘shape’ is used in the vulgar sense, and means what one would normally expect it to mean. ... We here define ‘shape’ informally as ‘all the geometrical information that remains when location, scale[Here, scale means only uniform scaling, as non-uniform scaling would change the shape of the object (e.g., it would turn a square into a rectangle).] and rotational effects are filtered out from an object.’
Shapes of physical objects are equal if the subsets of space these objects occupy satisfy the definition above. In particular, the shape does not depend on the size and placement in space of the object. For instance, a " d" and a " p" have the same shape, as they can be perfectly superimposed if the " d" is translated to the right by a given distance, rotated upside down and magnified by a given factor (see Procrustes superimposition for details). However, a mirror image could be called a different shape. For instance, a " b" and a " p" have a different shape, at least when they are constrained to move within a two-dimensional space like the page on which they are written. Even though they have the same size, there's no way to perfectly superimpose them by translating and rotating them along the page. Similarly, within a three-dimensional space, a right hand and a left hand have a different shape, even if they are the mirror images of each other. Shapes may change if the object is scaled non-uniformly. For example, a sphere becomes an ellipsoid when scaled differently in the vertical and horizontal directions. In other words, preserving axes of symmetry (if they exist) is important for preserving shapes. Also, shape is determined by only the outer boundary of an object.
Congruence and similarity
Objects that can be transformed into each other by rigid transformations and mirroring (but not scaling) are congruent. An object is therefore congruent to its
mirror image (even if it is not symmetric), but not to a scaled version. Two congruent objects always have either the same shape or mirror image shapes, and have the same size.
Objects that have the same shape or mirror image shapes are called geometrically similar, whether or not they have the same size. Thus, objects that can be transformed into each other by rigid transformations, mirroring, and uniform scaling are similar. Similarity is preserved when one of the objects is uniformly scaled, while congruence is not. Thus, congruent objects are always geometrically similar, but similar objects may not be congruent, as they may have different size.
Homeomorphism
A more flexible definition of shape takes into consideration the fact that realistic shapes are often deformable, e.g. a person in different postures, a tree bending in the wind or a hand with different finger positions.
One way of modeling non-rigid movements is by . Roughly speaking, a homeomorphism is a continuous stretching and bending of an object into a new shape. Thus, a square and a circle are homeomorphic to each other, but a sphere and a torus are not. An often-repeated mathematical joke is that topologists cannot tell their coffee cup from their donut,
Shape analysis
The above-mentioned mathematical definitions of rigid and non-rigid shape have arisen in the field of statistical shape analysis. In particular, Procrustes analysis is a technique used for comparing shapes of similar objects (e.g. bones of different animals), or measuring the deformation of a deformable object. Other methods are designed to work with non-rigid (bendable) objects, e.g. for posture independent shape retrieval (see for example Spectral shape analysis).
Similarity classes
All similar triangles have the same shape. These shapes can be classified using
u, v, w for the vertices, in a method advanced by J.A. Lester
[J.A. Lester (1996) "Triangles I: Shapes", Aequationes Mathematicae 52:30–54] and
Rafael Artzy. For example, an equilateral triangle can be expressed by the complex numbers 0, 1, (1 + i √3)/2 representing its vertices. Lester and Artzy call the ratio
the shape of triangle ( u, v, w). Then the shape of the equilateral triangle is
- (0–(1+ √3)/2)/(0–1) = ( 1 + i √3)/2 = cos(60°) + i sin(60°) = exp( i π/3).
For any affine transformation of the
complex plane,
a triangle is transformed but does not change its shape. Hence shape is an invariant of
affine geometry.
The shape
p = S(
u,v,w) depends on the order of the arguments of function S, but
lead to related values. For instance,
- Also
Combining these permutations gives
Furthermore,
- These relations are "conversion rules" for shape of a triangle.
The shape of a
quadrilateral is associated with two complex numbers
p,q. If the quadrilateral has vertices
u,v,w,x, then
p = S(
u,v,w) and
q = S(
v,w,x). Artzy proves these propositions about quadrilateral shapes:
-
If then the quadrilateral is a parallelogram.
-
If a parallelogram has | arg p | = | arg q |, then it is a rhombus.
-
When p = 1 + i and q = (1 + i)/2, then the quadrilateral is square.
-
If and sgn r = sgn(Im p), then the quadrilateral is a trapezoid.
A
polygon has a shape defined by
n – 2 complex numbers
The polygon bounds a
convex set when all these shape components have imaginary components of the same sign.
[Rafael Artzy (1994) "Shapes of Polygons", Journal of Geometry 50(1–2):11–15]
Human perception of shapes
Psychologists have theorized that humans mentally break down images into simple geometric shapes called geons.
[Marr, D., & Nishihara, H. (1978). Representation and recognition of the spatial organization of three-dimensional shapes. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 200, 269-294.] Examples of geons include cones and spheres. A wide range of other shape representations have also been investigated.
There also seems to be something about shape that can guide human attention.
See also
-
Area
-
Glossary of shapes with metaphorical names
-
Shape factor
-
Solid geometry
-
Region (mathematics)
External links
[[Category:Geometric shapes|Shape]]
