Question

The function below returns points on a sphere with a given radius. I want to add restriction such that points cannot be plotted within 30 degrees of the poles of the sphere.

public static function randomPoint(radius:Number):Number3D
 {

  var inclination:Number = Math.random() * Math.PI*2;
  var azimuth:Number = Math.random() * Math.PI*2;

  var point:Number3D = new Number3D(
   radius * Math.sin(inclination) * Math.cos(azimuth),
   radius * Math.sin(inclination) * Math.sin(azimuth),
   radius * Math.cos(inclination)
  );

  return point;
 }

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Sounds like you can just restrict the inclination:

var inclination:Number = (Math.PI/6) + Math.random()*(2*Math.PI-2*Math.PI/6)

Feel free to resolve those constant values, just kept them in to show the working.