Angles between two n-dimensional vectors in Python
Note: all of the other answers here will fail if the two vectors have either the same direction (ex, (1, 0, 0)
, (1, 0, 0)
) or opposite directions (ex, (-1, 0, 0)
, (1, 0, 0)
).
Here is a function which will correctly handle these cases:
import numpy as np
def unit_vector(vector):
""" Returns the unit vector of the vector. """
return vector / np.linalg.norm(vector)
def angle_between(v1, v2):
""" Returns the angle in radians between vectors 'v1' and 'v2'::
>>> angle_between((1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0))
1.5707963267948966
>>> angle_between((1, 0, 0), (1, 0, 0))
0.0
>>> angle_between((1, 0, 0), (-1, 0, 0))
3.141592653589793
"""
v1_u = unit_vector(v1)
v2_u = unit_vector(v2)
return np.arccos(np.clip(np.dot(v1_u, v2_u), -1.0, 1.0))
import math
def dotproduct(v1, v2):
return sum((a*b) for a, b in zip(v1, v2))
def length(v):
return math.sqrt(dotproduct(v, v))
def angle(v1, v2):
return math.acos(dotproduct(v1, v2) / (length(v1) * length(v2)))
Note: this will fail when the vectors have either the same or the opposite direction. The correct implementation is here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/13849249/71522