Faster numpy cartesian to spherical coordinate conversion?

Here's a quick Cython code that I wrote up for this:

cdef extern from "math.h":
    long double sqrt(long double xx)
    long double atan2(long double a, double b)

import numpy as np
cimport numpy as np
cimport cython

ctypedef np.float64_t DTYPE_t

@cython.boundscheck(False)
@cython.wraparound(False)
def appendSpherical(np.ndarray[DTYPE_t,ndim=2] xyz):
    cdef np.ndarray[DTYPE_t,ndim=2] pts = np.empty((xyz.shape[0],6))
    cdef long double XsqPlusYsq
    for i in xrange(xyz.shape[0]):
        pts[i,0] = xyz[i,0]
        pts[i,1] = xyz[i,1]
        pts[i,2] = xyz[i,2]
        XsqPlusYsq = xyz[i,0]**2 + xyz[i,1]**2
        pts[i,3] = sqrt(XsqPlusYsq + xyz[i,2]**2)
        pts[i,4] = atan2(xyz[i,2],sqrt(XsqPlusYsq))
        pts[i,5] = atan2(xyz[i,1],xyz[i,0])
    return pts

It took the time down from 62.4 seconds to 1.22 seconds using 3,000,000 points for me. That's not too shabby. I'm sure there are some other improvements that can be made.

This is similar to Justin Peel's answer, but using just numpy and taking advantage of its built-in vectorization:

import numpy as np

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

Note that, as suggested in the comments, I've changed the definition of elevation angle from your original function. On my machine, testing with pts = np.random.rand(3000000, 3), the time went from 76 seconds to 3.3 seconds. I don't have Cython so I wasn't able to compare the timing with that solution.

! There is an error still in all the code above.. and this is a top Google result.. TLDR: I have tested this with VPython, using atan2 for theta (elev) is wrong, use acos! It is correct for phi (azim). I recommend the sympy1.0 acos function (it does not even complain about acos(z/r) with r = 0 ) .

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SphericalCoordinates.html

If we convert that to the physics system (r, theta, phi) = (r, elev, azimuth) we have:

r = sqrt(x*x + y*y + z*z)
phi = atan2(y,x)
theta = acos(z,r)

Non optimized but correct code for right-handed physics system:

from sympy import *
def asCartesian(rthetaphi):
    #takes list rthetaphi (single coord)
    r       = rthetaphi[0]
    theta   = rthetaphi[1]* pi/180 # to radian
    phi     = rthetaphi[2]* pi/180
    x = r * sin( theta ) * cos( phi )
    y = r * sin( theta ) * sin( phi )
    z = r * cos( theta )
    return [x,y,z]

def asSpherical(xyz):
    #takes list xyz (single coord)
    x       = xyz[0]
    y       = xyz[1]
    z       = xyz[2]
    r       =  sqrt(x*x + y*y + z*z)
    theta   =  acos(z/r)*180/ pi #to degrees
    phi     =  atan2(y,x)*180/ pi
    return [r,theta,phi]

you can test it yourself with a function like:

test = asCartesian(asSpherical([-2.13091326,-0.0058279,0.83697319]))

some other test data for some quadrants:

[[ 0.          0.          0.        ]
 [-2.13091326 -0.0058279   0.83697319]
 [ 1.82172775  1.15959835  1.09232283]
 [ 1.47554111 -0.14483833 -1.80804324]
 [-1.13940573 -1.45129967 -1.30132008]
 [ 0.33530045 -1.47780466  1.6384716 ]
 [-0.51094007  1.80408573 -2.12652707]]

I used VPython additionally to easily visualize vectors:

test   = v.arrow(pos = (0,0,0), axis = vis_ori_ALA , shaftwidth=0.05, color=v.color.red)