ON THE STATISTICAL-ANALYSIS OF ORIENTATION DATA

The statistical analysis of data in the form of orientations is a rela tively new discipline and results from the literature on this subject are not yet widely known outside the statistics community. This paper provides an introduction to and the key references for statistical met hods for analysing orientation data. More specifically, the problem of estimating an unknown orientation is considered and results on the pr ecision of such an estimated orientation are described. The calculatio n of average orientation and dispersion parameters for a sample of ori entations is also considered. Finally, procedures for generating and t esting for random orientations are described. The methodology is illus trated with crystal orientation data obtained from the analysis of ele ctron back-scattering patterns.