On the Space of Oriented Affine Lines in $R^3$

Abstract

We introduce a local coordinate description for the correspondence between the space of oriented affine lines in Euclidean ${\Bbb{R}}^3$ and the tangent bundle to the 2-sphere. These can be utilised to give canonical coordinates on surfaces in ${\Bbb{R}}^3$, as we illustrate with a number of explicit examples.