How do you find scale factor?

1 Answer
Feb 3, 2016

Scale factor is the ratio between the length of any linear component of the image to the length of its corresponding original component.

Explanation:

Scaling is a transformation of objects on a plane that is characterized by
(a) the center of scaling #O#
(b) scaling factor #f!=0#.

If these two characteristics are know, the image of any point #A# is constructed by connecting point #O# to point #A# and finding on that line such a point #A'# that
#|OA|/|OA'| = |f|#
Point #A'# lies on the same side from center #O# as point #A# if #f>0# and on the opposite side form center #O# for #f<0#.

Scaling proportionally changes all the lengths of straight segments, preserves the angles and, in particular, preserves parallelism and perpendicularity between straight lines.

A concept of similarity is completely based on scaling. See UNIZOR menu items Geometry - Similarity many details, theorems and problems.