In transformation geometry, the elemental concept of transformation is the reflection (mathematics). In planar transformations a translation is obtained by reflection in parallel lines, and rotation is obtained by reflection in a pair of intersecting lines. To produce a screw transformation from similar concepts one must use planes in space : the parallel planes must be perpendicular to the screw axis, which is the line of intersection of the intersecting planes that generate the rotation of the screw. Thus four reflections in planes effect a screw transformation. The tradition of inversive geometry borrows some of the ideas of projective geometry and provides a language of transformation that does not depend on analytic geometry.