Unit vector
In some cases, we don't care about the magnitude of the vector, we just want to know the direction of the vector. To find this out, we want the length of the vector in the X, Y and Z direction to be equal to 1. Such vectors are called unit vectors or normalized vectors.
In unit vectors, the X, Y, and Z components of the vector are divided by the magnitude to create a vector of unit length. They are denoted by a hat on top of the vector name instead of an arrow. So, a unit vector of A will be denoted as .
When a vector is converted into a unit vector, it is said to be normalized. Meaning the value is always between 0.0 and 1.0. The original value has been rescaled to be in this range. Let's normalize the vector = (3, -5, 7)
First we have to calculate the magnitude of , which we have already done before i.e 9.11
So, unit vector
= (3 , -5, 7) / 9.11
= (3 / 9.11 , -5 / 9.11, 7 / 9.11)
= (0.33, -0.51, 0.77)