affine transformation

An image of a fern-like fractal (Barnsley's fern) that exhibits affine self-similarity. Each of the leaves of the fern is related to each other leaf by an affine transformation. For instance, the red leaf can be transformed into both the dark blue leaf and any of the light blue leaves by a combination of reflection, rotation, scaling, and translation.

In Euclidean geometry, an affine transformation or affinity (from the Latin, affinis, "connected with") is a geometric transformation that preserves lines and parallelism, but not necessarily Euclidean distances and angles.