Lets say I tell you that I am going to rotate every point 90 degrees counterclockwise about the x axis. Does this mean that if I would look down on the x axis from the positive z axis and define counterclockwise like that? Or would I look up towards the x axis from the negative z?
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$\begingroup$ Stick your right thumb on the center of an analog clock. Curl your fingers in a CW direction. You thumb is now pointing along the + CW axis. Use you left hand and curl fingers in CCW and your left thumb is pointing along the + CCW axis. $\endgroup$– MaxWCommented Sep 26, 2016 at 23:08
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I am not quite sure what you mean by "look down on the x axis from the z axis". An easy way to understand what you need to do is the following: Extend the thumb of you right hand and align it with the axis you want to rotate around, so that it points towards the positive growth direction. Then the other four fingers, when curled, will point in the direction of a counterclockwise rotation. If you do it with your left hand, they will indicate the clockwise rotation. This is one of the many applications of the right-hand rule. See the image in the Wikipedia article if I have not been clear enough.
