Efficient 4x4 matrix inverse (affine transform)

Question

I was hoping someone can point out an efficient formula for 4x4 affine matrix transform. Currently my code uses cofactor expansion and it allocates a temporary array for ea

Answer 1

Just in case someone would like to save some typing, here's an AS3 version I wrote based on page 9 (more efficient version of Laplace Expansion Theorem) of the link posted above by phkahler:

public function invert() : Matrix4 {
    var m : Matrix4 = new Matrix4();

    var s0 : Number = i00 * i11 - i10 * i01;
    var s1 : Number = i00 * i12 - i10 * i02;
    var s2 : Number = i00 * i13 - i10 * i03;
    var s3 : Number = i01 * i12 - i11 * i02;
    var s4 : Number = i01 * i13 - i11 * i03;
    var s5 : Number = i02 * i13 - i12 * i03;

    var c5 : Number = i22 * i33 - i32 * i23;
    var c4 : Number = i21 * i33 - i31 * i23;
    var c3 : Number = i21 * i32 - i31 * i22;
    var c2 : Number = i20 * i33 - i30 * i23;
    var c1 : Number = i20 * i32 - i30 * i22;
    var c0 : Number = i20 * i31 - i30 * i21;

    // Should check for 0 determinant

    var invdet : Number = 1 / (s0 * c5 - s1 * c4 + s2 * c3 + s3 * c2 - s4 * c1 + s5 * c0);

    m.i00 = (i11 * c5 - i12 * c4 + i13 * c3) * invdet;
    m.i01 = (-i01 * c5 + i02 * c4 - i03 * c3) * invdet;
    m.i02 = (i31 * s5 - i32 * s4 + i33 * s3) * invdet;
    m.i03 = (-i21 * s5 + i22 * s4 - i23 * s3) * invdet;

    m.i10 = (-i10 * c5 + i12 * c2 - i13 * c1) * invdet;
    m.i11 = (i00 * c5 - i02 * c2 + i03 * c1) * invdet;
    m.i12 = (-i30 * s5 + i32 * s2 - i33 * s1) * invdet;
    m.i13 = (i20 * s5 - i22 * s2 + i23 * s1) * invdet;

    m.i20 = (i10 * c4 - i11 * c2 + i13 * c0) * invdet;
    m.i21 = (-i00 * c4 + i01 * c2 - i03 * c0) * invdet;
    m.i22 = (i30 * s4 - i31 * s2 + i33 * s0) * invdet;
    m.i23 = (-i20 * s4 + i21 * s2 - i23 * s0) * invdet;

    m.i30 = (-i10 * c3 + i11 * c1 - i12 * c0) * invdet;
    m.i31 = (i00 * c3 - i01 * c1 + i02 * c0) * invdet;
    m.i32 = (-i30 * s3 + i31 * s1 - i32 * s0) * invdet;
    m.i33 = (i20 * s3 - i21 * s1 + i22 * s0) * invdet;

    return m;
}

This successfully produced an identity matrix when I multiplied various 3D transformation matrices by the inverse returned from this method. I'm sure you can search/replace to get this into whatever language you'd like.