Directional statistics
（重定向自Directional data）
![The overall shape of a protein can be parameterized as a sequence of points on the unit sphere. Shown are two views of the spherical histogram of such points for a large collection of protein structures. The statistical treatment of such data is in the realm of directional statistics.[1]](/Images/godic/202501/09/Fb5_cover5350.jpg")
![Three points sets sampled from different Kent distributions on the sphere.](/Images/godic/202501/09/Point_sets_from_Kent_distributions_mapped_onto_a_sphere_-_journal.pcbi.0020131.g004.svg5350.png")
Directional statistics (also circular statistics or spherical statistics) is the subdiscipline of statistics that deals with directions (unit vectors in R), axes (lines through the origin in R) or rotations in R. More generally, directional statistics deals with observations on compact Riemannian manifolds.