Cartesian coordinate system

Scientific  

/ kär-tē′zhən /

1. A system in which the location of a point is given by coordinates that represent its distances from perpendicular lines that intersect at a point called the origin. A Cartesian coordinate system in a plane has two perpendicular lines (the x-axis and y-axis); in three-dimensional space, it has three (the x-axis, y-axis, and z-axis).

2. Compare polar coordinate system

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Example Sentences

By tracking, he means that every robot has a camera underneath it, pointing down at a surface made up of tiny, intricate circles that are part of a Cartesian coordinate system.

From New York Times

In contrast to Pierre L’Enfant’s grandiose national capital, the street commissioners adopted what Reuben Skye Rose-Redwood, a geographer and expert on the grid, described as “a physical representation of the Cartesian coordinate system.”

From New York Times