HELP POP_RADIANS David Young April 2000 LIB * POP_RADIANS defines some angular quantities that are set according to the value of *popradians. When writing general code that uses angular quantities, one often ends up with things like if popradians then pi/2 else 90 endif -> rightangle This is inefficient, fiddly and error-prone. It is normally more efficient to define, say, a right angle at the time popradians is set, rather than when the angle is required. By loading LIB POP_RADIANS and using pop_radians instead of popradians, this is done automatically. pop_radians -> bool [active variable] bool -> pop_radians Referencing this variable returns the current value of *popradians. Updating this variable updates popradians and also sets the values of the variables listed below. pop_circle [variable] pop_semicircle [variable] pop_rightangle [variable] pop_degree [variable] pop_radian [variable] pop_arcminute [variable] pop_arcsecond [variable] These variables are set when the library is loaded according to the current value of popradians, and are updated whenever pop_radians is updated. They should not be changed in any other way. Their values are as given in the table below. Variable pop_radians = false pop_radians = true -------- ------------------- ------------------ pop_circle 360.0 2 * pi = 6.2832... pop_semicircle 180.0 pi = 3.1416... pop_rightangle 90.0 pi/2 = 1.5708... pop_degree 1.0 2*pi/360 = 0.01745... pop_radian 360/(2*pi) = 57.30... 1.0 pop_arcminute 1.0/60 = 0.01667... 2*pi/21600 = 0.000291... pop_arcsecond 1.0/3600 = 0.000278... 2*pi/1296000 = 0.00000485... --- $popvision/help/pop_radians --- Copyright University of Sussex 2000. All rights reserved.