R: Coordinate Transformations

cart2sph {pracma} | R Documentation

## Coordinate Transformations

### Description

Transforms between cartesian, spherical, polar, and cylindrical coordinate systems in two and three dimensions.

### Usage

    cart2sph(xyz)
    sph2cart(tpr)
    cart2pol(xyz)
    pol2cart(prz)

### Arguments

`xyz` | cartesian coordinates x, y, z as vector or matrix.
`tpr` | spherical coordinates theta, phi, and r as vector or matrix.
`prz` | polar coordinates phi, r or cylindrical coordinates phi, r, z as vector or matrix.

### Details

`cart2sph` returns spherical coordinates as (theta, phi, r), and `sph2cart` expects them in this sequence.

`cart2pol` returns polar coordinates (phi, r) if `length(xyz)==2` and cylindrical coordinates (phi, r, z) else. `pol2cart` needs them in this sequence and length.

To go from cylindrical to cartesian coordinates, transform to cartesian coordinates first — or write your own function, see the examples.

All transformation functions are vectorized.

### Value

All functions return a (2- or 3-dimensional) vector representing a point in the requested coordinate system, or a matrix with 2 or 3 named columns where is row represents a point. The columns are named accordingly.

### Note

In Matlab these functions accept two or three variables and return two or three values. In R it did not appear appropriate to return coordinates as a list.

These functions should be vectorized in the sense that they accept will accept matrices with number of rows or columns equal to 2 or 3.

### Examples

    x <- 0.5*cos(pi/6); y <- 0.5*sin(pi/6); z <- sqrt(1 - x^2 - y^2)
    (s <-cart2sph(c(x, y, z)))      # 0.5235988 1.0471976 1.0000000
    sph2cart(s)                     # 0.4330127 0.2500000 0.8660254

    cart2pol(c(1,1))                # 0.7853982 1.4142136
    cart2pol(c(1,1,0))              # 0.7853982 1.4142136 0.0000000
    pol2cart(c(pi/2, 1))            # 6.123234e-17 1.000000e+00
    pol2cart(c(pi/4, 1, 1))         # 0.7071068 0.7071068 1.0000000

    ##  Transform spherical to cylindrical coordinates and vice versa
    sph2cyl <- function(th.ph.r) cart2pol(sph2cart(th.ph.r))
    cyl2sph <- function(phi.r.z) cart2sph(pol2cart(phi.r.z))

[Package pracma version 2.0.4 Index]