Thorsten W. Becker

Jackson School of Geosciences
The University of Texas at Austin

Teaching: Spherical harmonics


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teaching: UT GEOL: [GP 354], [LP 315] [TG 371], other classes
[CIDER] [C] [UNIX/GMT] [SEATREE] [visuals]

Other Earth science / computing visualizations for download

Spherical harmonics visualizations

  • Simple overview

    Simple plot of a few spherical harmonics (PDF or PNG).

  • 3-D visualizations

    Inspired by Allen McNamara's nifty movies, I couldn't help but use the new python
    scripting facility in Paraview and make my own. Shown are a few real spherical harmonics
    with alm = 1, blm = 0, warped with the scalar amplitude that is colored from red to blue.
    Gray translucent sphere indicates the zero, spheroid shape.
    Click on each image to bring up an animation.
  • Simple movie

    spherical harmonic

    Clicking on the image above will download a 2.5MB MPEG movie that does
    nothing but show the pattern of all spherical harmonics up to degree (l) and order (m) 31.
    If you have some sort of movieplayer that lets you select individual frames,
    it can be useful in visualizing the individual harmonics.


Updated: November 11, 2024 (c) Thorsten Becker, 1997-2024.