Ellipsoid Shortest Distance

Abstract

ESD : Ellipsoid Shortest Distance

ESD is a Python library for computationally determining shortest distances over the surface of an ellipsoid. This is primarily done using the fast marching method (FMM) of Kimmel and Sethian, on a suitably defined mesh of the ellipsoid surface. This approach allows the computation of approximate distances between any pair of points on any ellipsoid (sphere, spheroid or triaxial) with great efficiency. Moreover, multiple distances can be computed from a particular start point using a single calculation. This makes the method particularly well suited to solving single source problems.