First step of SVD changes basis of domain to basis such that...

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I am trying to understand Singular Value Decomposition. I have not read this explicitly, but as far as I understand it we have:

$\mathbf{V}^\top$ changes the basis from the canonical/standard basis in $\mathbb{R}^n$ to the basis, for which the linear transformation $\mathbf{A}$ is merely a scaling and/or change of dimension.

I.e.,

The first step of SVD changes the basis of the domain to a basis such that in the resulting basis the linear transformation $\mathbf{A}$ is merely a scaling and/or change of dimension.

Is that true?

For reference, this is the definition I am working with (MML Deisenroth): Definition SVD