A function of two
two-dimensional vectors, returning a
scalar. The slash product is the two-dimensional analogue of the
three-dimensional cross product.
Given two vectors
a = [dxa, dya] and
b = [dxb, dyb]
a / b = dxbdya - dxadyb
The value of the slash product is always the magnitude of the vector returned by the cross product of equivalent three-dimensional vectors:
a / b = |a| |b| sin θ
where
|b| id the magnitude of vector
a,
|b| is the magnitude of vector
b, and
θ is the
angle which, applied to the
direction of vector
a, would produce the direction of vector
b.
This is also the area of a
parallelogram whose sides have the direction and magnitude of the two vectors, two sides for each vector.
It's very useful since
|b| sin θ is used for calculating the perpendicular distance from a point to a line segment.