Transects

The mpas_tools.transects module contains functions used to define transects through MPAS meshes. These transects can be used to create masks of the cells, edges or dual-mesh cells (in some sense “vertices”) that intersect the transect. They can also be used for visualization such as plotting vertical cross-sections of MPAS data along the transect.

Subdividing transects

For both visualization and intersection detection, it is often useful to subdivide a transect into smaller segments. This is performed with the function mpas_tools.transects.subdivide_great_circle() for spherical meshes and with mpas_tools.transects.subdivide_planar() for planar meshes.

For spherical meshes, subdivision is performed in Cartesian coordinates. Since transects are typically provided as a sequence of longitude/latitude points, it is typically necessary to convert to Cartesian coordinates using mpas_tools.transects.lon_lat_to_cartesian() and then back to longitude/latitude coordinates using mpas_tools.transects.cartesian_to_lon_lat().

Low-level functions

The module also shares some lower-level functions used elsewhere in the package.

The arc length (in radians) along a transect can be found with mpas_tools.transects.angular_distance().

The function mpas_tools.transects.intersects() can be used to determine if 2 arcs on the sphere intersect one another and mpas_tools.transects.intersection() can be used to find the intersection point of 2 intersecting arcs.