Geometry Boost List: [geometry] Spherical Geometry

Subject: [geometry] Spherical Geometry
From: Michael Droettboom (mdroe_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-01-23 14:35:23

I'm evaluating Boost.Geometry for use in some astronomy applications 
here at the Space Telescope Science Institute.

The geometry I'm interested in is spherical (polygons on the sky 
sphere).  While most objects in astronomy are referenced in ra and dec 
(analogous to lon and lat) for historical reasons, most operations on 
polygons on the sky sphere must be done in 3d cartesian space (on the 
unit sphere), since ra and dec have all kinds of well understood 
problems at the poles.  Does Boost.Geometry have any facilities for 
working with polygons on the unit sphere that work around the poles?  
I'm most interested in doing union and intersection operations on 
arbitrary polygons and then calculating their area.

Is this something Boost.Geometry is suited for?  I couldn't find any 
existing examples that related to this, and it's not clear from reading 
the code.

Mike

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