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Section 12.6 : Vector Functions

We first saw vector functions back when we were looking at the Equation of Lines. In that section we talked about them because we
wrote down the equation of a line in R3 in terms of a vector function (sometimes called a vector-valued function). In this section we want
to look a little closer at them and we also want to look at some vector functions in R3 other than lines.

A vector function is a function that takes one or more variables and returns a vector. We’ll spend most of this section looking at vector
functions of a single variable as most of the places where vector functions show up here will be vector functions of single variables. We
will however briefly look at vector functions of two variables at the end of this section.

A vector functions of a single variable in R2 and R3 have the form,

r→ (t) = ⟨f (t) , g (t)⟩ r→ (t) = ⟨f (t) , g (t) , h (t)⟩

respectively, where f (t),g (t) and h (t) are called the component functions.

The main idea that we want to discuss in this section is that of graphing and identifying the graph given by a vector function. Before we
do that however, we should talk briefly about the domain of a vector function. The domain of a vector function is the set of all t’s for which
all the component functions are defined.

Example 1 Determine the domain of the following function.

r→ (t) = ⟨cos t, ln(4 − t), √t + 1⟩

Show Solution 

Let’s now move into looking at the graph of vector functions. In order to graph a vector function all we do is think of the vector returned by
→ = ⟨a, b, c⟩, is a vector that starts at
the vector function as a position vector for points on the graph. Recall that a position vector, say v
the origin and ends at the point (a, b, c).

So, in order to sketch the graph of a vector function all we need to do is plug in some values of t and then plot points that correspond to
the resulting position vector we get out of the vector function.

Because it is a little easier to visualize things we’ll start off by looking at graphs of vector functions in R2 .

Example 2 Sketch the graph of each of the following vector functions.

(a) r→ (t) = ⟨t, 1⟩

(b) r→ (t) = ⟨t, t3 − 10t + 7⟩

[Show All Solutions] [Hide All Solutions]

(a) r→ (t) = ⟨t, 1⟩ Show Solution 

(b) r→ (t) = ⟨t, t3 − 10t + 7⟩ Show Solution 

Both of the vector functions in the above example were in the form,

r→ (t) = ⟨t, g (t)⟩

and what we were really sketching is the graph of y = g (x) as you probably caught onto. Let’s graph a couple of other vector functions
that do not fall into this pattern.

Example 3 Sketch the graph of each of the following vector functions.

(a) r→ (t) = ⟨6 cos t, 3 sin t⟩

(b) r→ (t) = ⟨t − 2 sin t, t2 ⟩

[Show All Solutions] [Hide All Solutions]

Show Discussion 
(a) r→ (t) = ⟨6 cos t, 3 sin t⟩ Show Solution 

(b) r→ (t) = ⟨t − 2 sin t, t2 ⟩ Show Solution 

Before we move on to vector functions in R3 let’s go back and take a quick look at the first vector function we sketched in the previous
example, r→ (t) = ⟨6 cos t, 3 sin t⟩. The fact that we got an ellipse here should not come as a surprise to you. We know that the first
component function gives the x coordinate and the second component function gives the y coordinates of the point that we graph. If we
strip these out to make this clear we get,

x = 6 cos t y = 3 sin t

This should look familiar to you. Back when we were looking at Parametric Equations we saw that this was nothing more than one of
the sets of parametric equations that gave an ellipse.

This is an important idea in the study of vector functions. Any vector function can be broken down into a set of parametric equations that
represent the same graph. In general, the two dimensional vector function, r→ (t) = ⟨f (t) , g (t)⟩, can be broken down into the
parametric equations,

x = f (t) y = g (t)

Likewise, a three dimensional vector function, r→ (t) = ⟨f (t) , g (t) , h (t)⟩, can be broken down into the parametric equations,

x = f (t) y = g (t) z = h (t)

Do not get too excited about the fact that we’re now looking at parametric equations in R3 . They work in exactly the same manner as
parametric equations in R2 which we’re used to dealing with already. The only difference is that we now have a third component.

Let’s take a look at a couple of graphs of vector functions.

Example 4 Sketch the graph of the following vector function.

r→ (t) = ⟨2 − 4t, −1 + 5t, 3 + t⟩

Show Solution 

Example 5 Sketch the graph of the following vector function.

r→ (t) = ⟨2 cos t, 2 sin t, 3⟩

Show Solution 

Note that it is very easy to modify the above vector function to get a circle centered on the x or y-axis as well. For instance,

r→ (t) = ⟨10 sin t, −3, 10 cos t⟩

will be a circle of radius 10 centered on the y-axis and at y = −3. In other words, as long as two of the terms are a sine and a cosine
(with the same coefficient) and the other is a fixed number then we will have a circle that is centered on the axis that is given by the fixed
number.

Let’s take a look at a modification of this.

Example 6 Sketch the graph of the following vector function.

r→ (t) = ⟨4 cos t, 4 sin t, t⟩

Show Solution 

As with circles the component that has the t will determine the axis that the helix rotates about. For instance,

r→ (t) = ⟨t, 6 cos t, 6 sin t⟩

is a helix that rotates around the x-axis.

Also note that if we allow the coefficients on the sine and cosine for both the circle and helix to be different we will get ellipses.

For example,

r→ (t) = ⟨9 cos t, t, 2 sin t⟩

will be a helix that rotates about the y-axis and is in the shape of an ellipse.

There is a nice formula that we should derive before moving onto vector functions of two variables.

Example 7 Determine the vector equation for the line segment starting at the point P = (x1 , y1 , z1 ) and ending at the point
Q = (x2 , y2 , z2 ).
Show Solution 

As noted briefly at the beginning of this section we can also have vector functions of two variables. In these cases the graphs of vector
function of two variables are surfaces. So, to make sure that we don’t forget that let’s work an example with that as well.

i + y →j + (x2 + y 2 ) k
Example 8 Identify the surface that is described by r→ (x, y) = x → →.

Show Solution 

As a final topic for this section let’s generalize the idea from the previous example and note that given any function of one variable (
y = f (x) or x = h (y)) or any function of two variables (z = g (x, y),x = g (y, z), or y = g (x, z)) we can always write down a vector
form of the equation.

For a function of one variable this will be,

r→ (x) = x →i + f (x) →j r→ (y) = h (y) →i + y →j

and for a function of two variables the vector form will be,

→
r→ (x, y) = x →i + y →j + g (x, y) k →
r→ (y, z) = g (y, z) →i + y →j + z k
→
r→ (x, z) = x →i + g (x, z) →j + z k

depending upon the original form of the function.

For example, the hyperbolic paraboloid y = 2x2 − 5z 2 can be written as the following vector function.

r→ (x, z) = x →i + (2x2 − 5z 2 ) →j + z k
→

This is a fairly important idea and we will be doing quite a bit of this kind of thing in Calculus III.

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