https://github.com/mmcloughlin/spherand

Random points on a sphere in Golang
https://github.com/mmcloughlin/spherand

Last synced: 6 months ago
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Random points on a sphere in Golang

• Host: GitHub
• URL: https://github.com/mmcloughlin/spherand
• Owner: mmcloughlin
• License: isc
• Created: 2017-07-04T17:32:25.000Z (over 8 years ago)
• Default Branch: master
• Last Pushed: 2020-02-01T19:11:17.000Z (over 5 years ago)
• Last Synced: 2025-04-05T14:47:28.376Z (7 months ago)
• Language: Go
• Homepage: https://godoc.org/github.com/mmcloughlin/spherand
• Size: 9.77 KB
• Stars: 22
• Watchers: 3
• Forks: 2
• Open Issues: 1
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: README.md
  • License: LICENSE

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README

          
# spherand

Random points on a sphere in Golang.

[![go.dev Reference](https://img.shields.io/badge/doc-reference-007d9b?logo=go&style=flat-square)](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/mmcloughlin/spherand)

[![Build status](https://img.shields.io/travis/mmcloughlin/spherand.svg?style=flat-square)](https://travis-ci.org/mmcloughlin/spherand)

## The Problem

If you generate latitude and longitude uniformly in the ranges `[-90, 90]` and

`[-180, 180]` you will get distributions biased towards the poles.

![Distribution of broken generator](https://i.imgur.com/zLOdR0J.png)

This package [correctly picks points on a

sphere](http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SpherePointPicking.html), providing a

uniform distribution visualized below.

![Distribution of correct generator](https://i.imgur.com/2GikHe6.png)

## Getting Started

Install with

```sh

$ go get -u github.com/mmcloughlin/spherand

```

Generate a geographical point with

```go

lat, lng := spherand.Geographical()

```

You can also generate spherical coordinates with `Spherical()`.

If you need to control the random source, use a generator

```go

g := spherand.NewGenerator(rand.New(rand.NewSource(42)))

lat, lng := g.Geographical()

```

See [go.dev](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/mmcloughlin/spherand) for reference.

## Diagrams

Generated with [globe](https://github.com/mmcloughlin/globe).