Printing SE3 with symbolic equations

[Jakubach]

Hello,
I noticed that matrices with long symbolic equations are printed very shrink.
I found my own priting method and I suggest to align them by the longest term like this:

def print_SE3(SE3_matrix : SE3):
    SE3_numpy = SE3_matrix.A
    max_item_length = SE3_numpy.astype(np.string_).dtype.itemsize
    print(np.array2string(SE3_numpy,max_line_width=np.inf,precision=3,suppress_small=True,formatter = {'all':lambda x: f"{str(x):{max_item_length}}"}))

or:

def print_SE3(SE3_matrix : SE3):
    SE3_numpy = SE3_matrix.A
    max_item_length = SE3_numpy.astype(np.string_).dtype.itemsize
    with np.printoptions(precision=3, suppress=True, linewidth = np.inf, formatter = {'all':lambda x: f"{str(x):{max_item_length}}"}):
        print(SE3_numpy)

Results without print_SE3:

  -1.0*sin(theta2)*cos(theta1) 1.0*sin(theta1) 1.0*cos(theta1)*cos(theta2) (d3 + l2)*cos(theta1)*cos(theta2)  
  -1.0*sin(theta1)*sin(theta2) -1.0*cos(theta1) 1.0*sin(theta1)*cos(theta2) (d3 + l2)*sin(theta1)*cos(theta2)  
  1.0*cos(theta2) 0            1.0*sin(theta2) l1 + (d3 + l2)*sin(theta2)  
  0            0            0            1             

Results with print_SE3:

[[-1.0*sin(theta2)*cos(theta1)      1.0*sin(theta1)                   1.0*cos(theta1)*cos(theta2)       (d3 + l2)*cos(theta1)*cos(theta2)]
 [-1.0*sin(theta1)*sin(theta2)      -1.0*cos(theta1)                  1.0*sin(theta1)*cos(theta2)       (d3 + l2)*sin(theta1)*cos(theta2)]
 [1.0*cos(theta2)                   0                                 1.0*sin(theta2)                   l1 + (d3 + l2)*sin(theta2)       ]
 [0                                 0                                 0                                 1                                ]]

I know that this function could be better so the inner columns should have less separation but I think it's good first step towards the good change.

[petercorke]

this is a good idea. I want the package to work well for numeric and symbolic values. I wonder what causes the big gaps between the columns? precision, suppress_small and suppress should have no effect here and there aren't really any other formatting options. It would be annoying to have to write the column layout code to fix this...