/*
* Copyright (C) 2011-2015, Peter Abeles. All Rights Reserved.
*
* This file is part of Geometric Regression Library (GeoRegression).
*
* Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
* you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
* You may obtain a copy of the License at
*
* http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
*
* Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
* distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
* WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
* See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
* limitations under the License.
*/
package georegression.struct;
import java.io.Serializable;
/**
* Describes geometric objects that are composed of N double values. Where N is the dimension
* of space the object is contained in. Points and vectors are two examples of a GeoTuple. Each
* value is the value of the object along a dimension in the space it occupies.
*
* @author Peter Abeles
*/
public abstract class GeoTuple<T extends GeoTuple> implements Serializable {
/**
* The dimensionality of space the tuple is contained in and the number of values it has.
*
* @return Dimensionality of the object.
*/
public abstract int getDimension();
/**
* <p>
* Creates a new tuple instance of the same type.
* </p>
*
* @return new tuple instance.
*/
public abstract T createNewInstance();
/**
* Generic copy routine. It is recommended that this be overridden with a faster implementation.
*
* @return An exact copy of this GeoTuple.
*/
public abstract T copy();
}