pg_saff.py

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I have found that for any larger number of points there are always some which are very close together. When illustrating the distribution below I have had to choose a ball size which creates overlaps as a size where no balls overlap is too small to see the balls!

I've checked the program carefully against the method described in the reference but, because the distribution is not especially good I suspect there is an error somewhere.

pg_saff.py 200 200 points	pg_saff.py 1000 1000 points	pg_saff.py 1000 1000 points (from above)

You can see that there are many gaps as well as points which are very close together.

Program Help

usage: pg_saff.py [options] num_points

options\n"\
-h       this help message
-o file  write output to file, if this option is not used
         the program writes to standard output.
         
Distribute num_points (default 20) on a sphere using the algorithm
from "Distributing many points on a sphere" by E.B. Saff and
A.B.J. Kuijlaars, Mathematical Intelligencer 19.1 (1997) 5--11.