An axis is the element of an object or media that can be manipulated to determine the object's 2D or 3D space, position, and movement.
Use the scene's X,Y, and Z coordinate system to place each surface in the scene, or to rotate, scale, and shear surfaces. You move, rotate, and animate objects directly in the scene and use the camera to record the scene. The part of the scene that the camera, or frustum, looks at is what gets rendered.