Pairwise distance between two circular variables

Description

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

Usage

circ_dist(y1, y2)

Arguments

Value

A vector of distances between angles.

Author(s)

Joyce Hsiao, Matthew Stephens

Examples

# a 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))

# after rotation of angles, difference is 0 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))