fast cartesian to polar conversion, from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4116658/faster-numpy-cartesian-to-spherical-coordinate-conversion

cart2pol

def appendSpherical_np(xyz):
    ptsnew = np.hstack((xyz, np.zeros(xyz.shape)))
    xy = xyz[:,0]**2 + xyz[:,1]**2
    ptsnew[:,3] = np.sqrt(xy + xyz[:,2]**2)
    ptsnew[:,4] = np.arctan2(np.sqrt(xy), xyz[:,2]) # for elevation angle defined from Z-axis down
    #ptsnew[:,4] = np.arctan2(xyz[:,2], np.sqrt(xy)) # for elevation angle defined from XY-plane up
    ptsnew[:,5] = np.arctan2(xyz[:,1], xyz[:,0])
    return ptsnew