The tendency of a revolving body, when suspended in a certain way, to bring the axis of rotation into parallelism with the earth's axis.

The angular relationship of a surface, plane, discontinuity or axis to a reference plane or surface.

The angular relationship between the axes of a crystal and an external reference system. The orientation of individual crys?tals is most conveniently represented by poles of simple planes plotted stereo-graphically.

Which way the plane's pointing. If it's a silhouette, you can mistakenly think it's pointing the "other way," like the Necker Cube illusion.

rotational state of an object relative to a set of reference axes. The orientation of an object free to move in three dimensions has 3 components, sometimes referred to as pan, tilt and roll

of a single crystal surface, the crystallographic plane, described in terms of its Miller indices, with which the surface is ideally coincident. NOTE-In semiconductor single crystals, where the surface of a wafer cut from the crystal usually corresponds closely (within a degree or several degrees) to a low index plane, such as a {100} or {111} plane, the surface orientation is frequently described in terms of the maximum angular deviation of the mechanically prepared surface from the low index crystallographic plane.

Attribute of spatial features that describes the angle at which it is turned from its normal north south axis. Applies particularly to text or symbols, two point line features, and entire blocks of spatial features. For example, a water hydrant with an orientation of 30 degrees would be viewed with a declination of 120 degrees from the horizontal plane.

Arrangement of certain crystal axes or crystal planes in a crystalline aggregate with respect to a given direction or plane. If there is any tendency for one arrangement to predominate, it is known as the preferred orientation; in the absence of any such preference, random orientation exists. (2) Directions in space of the axes of the lattice of a crystal with respect to a chosen reference or coordinate system.