A new equal-area isolatitudinal grid on a spherical surface

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Malkin, Zinovy
Format: Preprint
Published: 2019
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author Malkin, Zinovy
author_facet Malkin, Zinovy
contents A new method SREAG (spherical rectangular equal-area grid) is proposed to divide a spherical surface into equal-area cells. The method is based on dividing a sphere into latitudinal rings of near-constant width with further splitting each ring into equal-area cells. It is simple in construction and use, and provides more uniform width of the latitudinal rings than other methods of equal-area pixelization of a spherical surface. The new method provides a rectangular grid cells with the latitude- and longitude-oriented boundaries, near-square cells in the equatorial rings, and the closest to uniform width of the latitudinal rings as compared with other equal-area isolatitudinal grids. The binned data is easy to visualize and interpret in terms of the longitude-latitude rectangular coordinate system, natural for astronomy and geodesy. Grids with arbitrary number of rings and, consequently, wide and theoretically unlimited range of cell size can be built by the proposed method. Comparison with other methods used in astronomical research showed the advantages of the new approach in sense of uniformity of the ring width, a wider range of grid resolution, and simplicity of use.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_1909_04701
institution arXiv
publishDate 2019
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A new equal-area isolatitudinal grid on a spherical surface
Malkin, Zinovy
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
A new method SREAG (spherical rectangular equal-area grid) is proposed to divide a spherical surface into equal-area cells. The method is based on dividing a sphere into latitudinal rings of near-constant width with further splitting each ring into equal-area cells. It is simple in construction and use, and provides more uniform width of the latitudinal rings than other methods of equal-area pixelization of a spherical surface. The new method provides a rectangular grid cells with the latitude- and longitude-oriented boundaries, near-square cells in the equatorial rings, and the closest to uniform width of the latitudinal rings as compared with other equal-area isolatitudinal grids. The binned data is easy to visualize and interpret in terms of the longitude-latitude rectangular coordinate system, natural for astronomy and geodesy. Grids with arbitrary number of rings and, consequently, wide and theoretically unlimited range of cell size can be built by the proposed method. Comparison with other methods used in astronomical research showed the advantages of the new approach in sense of uniformity of the ring width, a wider range of grid resolution, and simplicity of use.
title A new equal-area isolatitudinal grid on a spherical surface
topic Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
url https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.04701