Pitney Bowes MapInfo Professional - Manual (Page 406)

The difference between these two images is the translation.
The rotation factor of a transformation indicates that the image turns on a particular point. The next figure
shows a 25-degree rotation of the map around the 0,0 point.
The difference between these two images is not the scale, because the size of each image is the same.
The difference is the rotation of the derived image (B).
The shearing factor of a transformation indicates that one of the coordinates of one image should change
proportionally to the other. You can apply a shear transformation either on the x-axis as shown in the
next figure or on the y-axis. As you can see the vertical scale of the image has not changed, and the
corner of the figure at 0,0 has not moved-but points higher up on the figure are shifted progressively
further to the right.
The difference is the shearing of the derived image (B).
The reflection factor of a transformation indicates that the derived image is the mirror image of the base
image, that is, all the points in the base image should be reflected across some straight line, such as
the x-axis or y-axis. In the figure below, the derived image (B) is the reflection of the base image (A).
MapInfo Professional 12.5 406
Understanding Affine Transformations