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geometry block ​

The observation geometry — solar zenith, viewing zenith(s) and azimuth(s), and the observer altitude. All angles in degrees.

Required fields ​

  • sza — Real. Solar zenith angle [°]. Single scalar (no multi-SZA support yet — for that, run multiple rt_run calls). The solar beam is a single direction; multi-SZA is a Phase E.5 follow-up on top of the v0.6 source-term refactor.

  • vza — Vector{Real}. Viewing zenith angles [°]. One entry per output line of sight. Each entry is appended to the quadrature as a zero-weight output node so the solver can interpolate exactly to the requested viewing direction (see conventions.md §6).

  • vaz — Vector{Real}. Viewing azimuth angles [°], one per vza. Convention: vaz = 0° is the principal plane on the sun's side; vaz = 180° is the anti-solar principal plane. See conventions.md §3 for the Hovenier vs Mishchenko sign-difference notes.

  • obs_alt — Real. Observer altitude in Pa (not hPa). For TOA observers use the top-of-atmosphere pressure (typically 1 Pa or smaller). For surface-based observers use a value larger than the atmospheric profile's surface pressure.

Examples ​

Single nadir TOA observation ​

yaml
geometry:
  sza: 45.0
  vza: [0.0]
  vaz: [0.0]
  obs_alt: 1000.0     # Pa, near-TOA

Multi-VZA, principal-plane sweep ​

yaml
geometry:
  sza: 78.46          # acos(0.2), the Natraj-2009 setup
  vza: [10.0, 20.0, 40.0, 60.0]
  vaz: [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0]   # all in the principal plane
  obs_alt: 1000.0

Out-of-plane multi-azimuth ​

yaml
geometry:
  sza: 35.0
  vza: [10.0, 20.0, 40.0]
  vaz: [10.0, 90.0, 170.0]    # solar_tester vector setup
  obs_alt: 1000.0

See also ​