[Numpy-discussion] Polar/spherical coordinates handling

[Todd]

On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 4:33 PM, Angus McMorland <amcmorl at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 29 March 2013 11:15, Todd <toddrjen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > From what I can see, numpy doesn't have any functions for handling polar
> or
> > spherical coordinate to/from cartesian coordinate conversion.  I think
> such
> > methods would be pretty useful.  I am looking now and it doesn't look
> that
> > hard to create functions to convert between n-dimensional cartesian and
> > n-spherical coordinates.  Would anyone be interested in me adding methods
> > for this?
>
> I use these co-ordinate transforms often. I wonder if it wouldn't be
> preferable to create a scikit focused on spherical or, more generally,
> geometric operations rather than adding to the already hefty number of
> functions in numpy. I'd be interested to contribute to such a scikit.
>

The reason I think these particular functions belong in numpy is that they
are closely tied to signal processing and linear algebra, far more than any
other coordinate systems.  It is really just a generalization of the
complex number processing that is already available from numpy.

Also, although numpy has methods to convert complex values to magnitude and
angle, it doesn't have any methods to go the other way.  Again, such a
function would just be a special 2-D case of the more general n-dimensional
functions.
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