TITLE: Are Euler angles the same as pitch, roll and yaw?
QUESTION [24 upvotes]: I am wondering if pitch, roll and yaw are used to represent Euler angles? If not, what's the relationship between them?
From wiki, I know that Euler angles are used to represent the rotation from three axes independently, which seems like pitch, roll and yaw. But from this wiki, it seems that they are two different things.
So, can anyone explain that in detail?

REPLY [2 votes]: You can say that Euler angle representation (rep) is ZYX representation where as roll-pith-yaw is XYZ representation.
If $\alpha$ is rotation about Z axis, $\beta$ is rotation about Y axis, and $\gamma$ is rotation about X axis:  

Transformation matrix for Euler angles rep would be $R^{\alpha}_Z$*$R^{\beta}_Y$*$R^{\gamma}_X$.
Transformation matrix for Roll-pitch-yaw rep would be $R^{\gamma}_X$*$R^{\beta}_Y$*$R^{\alpha}_Z$.

Hence, if you consider rotation about X was done first, then about Y and then about Z. Then, rotations in Euler angles rep are w.r.t. global reference frame and those in roll-pitch-yaw are w.r.t. local frames.  
You can refer to 1 for better understanding.