Skip to content

Instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

@andrewbolster
Last active August 5, 2023 11:58
Show Gist options
  • Star 11 You must be signed in to star a gist
  • Fork 0 You must be signed in to fork a gist
  • Save andrewbolster/10274979 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Save andrewbolster/10274979 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Generate a random 3D unit vector with uniform spherical distribution
def random_three_vector():
"""
Generates a random 3D unit vector (direction) with a uniform spherical distribution
Algo from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5408276/python-uniform-spherical-distribution
:return:
"""
phi = np.random.uniform(0,np.pi*2)
costheta = np.random.uniform(-1,1)
theta = np.arccos( costheta )
x = np.sin( theta) * np.cos( phi )
y = np.sin( theta) * np.sin( phi )
z = np.cos( theta )
return (x,y,z)
# Example IPython code to test the uniformity of the distribution
from pylab import scatter
threetups = []
for _ in xrange(1000):
threetups.append(random_three_vector())
zipped = zip(*threetups)
scatter(*zipped[0:2])
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment