Pairwise Distance Between Two Circular Variables

Source: R/circ_dist.R

We define distance between two angles as the minimum of the differences in both clockwise and counterclockwise directions.

circ_dist(y1, y2)

Arguments

y1

A vector of angles.
y2

A vector of angles.

Value

A vector of distances between the angles.

Examples

# Vector of angles.
theta_ref <- seq(0,2*pi, length.out=100)

# Shift the origin of theta_ref to pi.
theta_compare <- shift_origin(theta_ref, origin = pi)
mean(circ_dist(theta_ref, theta_compare))
#> [1] 3.141593

# After rotation of angles, difference is zero between the original
# and the shifted angles.
theta_compare_rotated <- rotation(ref_var=theta_ref,
    shift_var=theta_compare)
mean(circ_dist(theta_ref, theta_compare_rotated))
#> [1] 1.641742e-16