scikit-learn/scikit-learn — pull request #1385 by jaquesgrobler (2012-11-20 15:02:42+00:00)
Title: New Manifold Learning Example using a Sphere

Hi all,

This is another manifold learning comparison example, this time using a spherical dataset.
I sort of merged @jakevdp 's [S-curve](http://scikit-learn.org/stable/auto_examples/manifold/plot_compare_methods.html) example into mine when I added LLE and MDS.
Here is the plot the example generates:

![Spherical Dataset Manifold Learning](http://i46.tinypic.com/1076xvr.png)

The end idea with this, which would be pretty cool to have in the example gallery, is to use something like the [Basemap Matplotlib](http://matplotlib.org/basemap/users/examples.html) toolkit to have an actual Earth Globe.

Something like (without the contours of course):

![Basemap globe](http://matplotlib.org/basemap/_images/contour1.png)

and then cut it open as with the example and apply the manifold learning techniques to it.
It could be a very useful tool for developing intuition when it comes to manifold-learning.