[liamkinne]

Interesting is how this applies to interpolation with industrial robotic arms.

Shortest path for each joint moving from a -> b does not create a linear path for the end-effector of the robot. Linear end-effector movements require inverse kinematics and are limited by how fast the slowest joint can move.

Quaternions are also useful because you often don’t care the particular rotation you approach and object with, just the angle/direction so you can leave theta as an arbitrary value.