Quadric Surfaces

Earlier we have looked at lines and planes in three dimensions (or R³) and when these are used fairly heavily at times in a Calculus class there are several other surfaces that are as well used fairly regularly and thus we need to take a look at those.

In this part we are going to be looking at quadric surfaces.

Definition of Quadric surfaces

Quadric surfaces are the graphs of some equation which can be put into the common form

Ax² + By² + Cz² + Dxy + Exz + Fyz + Gx + Hy + Iz + J = 0

In which A, ... , J are constants.

There is no other way that we can possibly list all of them, but there are a few standard equations so here is a listing of some of the more common quadric surfaces.