Geometry Boost List: Re: [geometry] Spherical Geometry

Subject: Re: [geometry] Spherical Geometry
From: Barend Gehrels (barend_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-01-26 16:52:32

Hi Michael,

Michael Droettboom wrote On 23-1-2014 20:35:
> 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.

Thanks for your interest. It is intended that overlay operations will 
support spherical geometries. However, currently that is not 
implemented. If so, indeed it would be suitable for astronomical 
applications too. Interesting.

Regards, Barend