indicatrix

indicatrix is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913) with 1 sense. The full text of each entry is reproduced verbatim below.

Definitions

  1. 1.A certain conic section supposed to be drawn in the tangent plane to any surface, and used to determine the accidents of curvature of the surface at the point of contact. The curve is similar to the intersection of the surface with a parallel to the tangent plane and indefinitely near it. It is an ellipse when the curvature is synclastic, and an hyperbola when the curvature is anticlastic.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

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