Clustering Azimuths: Algorithm & Link

[billiards]

Hi all,

If I have a set of azimuths, e.g. [ 0, 10, 11, 67, 68, 69, 70, 124, 127, 136, 355].

How can I cluster these directions bearing in mind that 355 is close to 0?

Can someone point me to a link, preferably with an algorithm I can use.

Cheers

 

[mfb]

I'm sure there are algorithms for clustering on a (1-dimensional) torus. A quick google search pointed me to this.
If you don't find one, this hack might work: transform your one-dimensional distribution to a circle in 2 dimensions: x -> (sin x, cos x), and look for clusters there.

 

[billiards]

Nice idea to use sinx, cosx.

Any idea what the best clustering algorithm to use would be? Ideally I want something that can figure out the optimum number of clusters itself from the data.

(Incidentally I am trying to do this using python -- so any python specific help would be particularly appreciated)

 

[mfb]

No idea, sorry.