Numpy - Get the Imaginary Part of a Complex Number

In this tutorial, we will look at how to get the imaginary part of a complex number in a Numpy array. For example for the complex number a + bj, a is the real part and b is the imaginary part.

How to get the imaginary part of complex values in a Numpy array?

get the imaginary part of complex number in numpy array

You can use the numpy.imag() function to get (element-wise) the imaginary part of complex numbers in a Numpy array. The following is the syntax –

# get the imaginary part - pass scaler value or numpy array
np.imag(a)

The numpy.imag() function essentially returns (element-wise) the imaginary component of the complex argument.

If you pass a scalar value, it returns the imaginary part of that value. And, if you pass a Numpy array, it returns the array of imaginary parts of the array elements.

Examples

Let’s now look at some examples of using the above function to extract the imaginary part of complex numbers.

Example 1 – Extract the imaginary part for a scalar value using `numpy.imag()`

First, let’s pass scaler values to the numpy.imag() function.

Let’s apply the numpy.imag() function on three scalar values – a real number, a complex number with a non-zero real part, and a complex number with the real part as 0.

import numpy as np

# get the imaginary part
print(np.imag(14))
print(np.imag(2 + 4j))
print(np.imag(3j))

Output:

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We get the imaginary component for all the scalar values irrespective of whether we passed a real or a complex number as an argument.

Example 2 – Element-wise extract the imaginary part in a Numpy array using `numpy.imag()`

If you apply the numpy.imag() function on an array, it will return a Numpy array of the extracted imaginary components for the elements inside the array.

Let’s create a 1-D array and apply the numpy.imag() function to it.

# create a numpy array
ar = np.array([1, 2+3j, 2+0j, 0+4j, 5.7, np.nan, np.inf, 1j, 0+0j])
# element-wise extract the imaginary part in ar
np.imag(ar)

Output:

array([0., 3., 0., 4., 0., 0., 0., 1., 0.])

We get a Numpy array containing the imaginary component of each value in the array ar.

Summary – Imaginary part of complex numbers in Numpy array

In this tutorial, we looked at how we can use the numpy.imag() function to extract the imaginary component of a complex number in a Numpy array. Keep in mind that if you apply this function on a scalar value, it returns the imaginary component whereas if you apply it on a Numpy array, it returns the array of imaginary components.

Author

Piyush Raj

Piyush is a data professional passionate about using data to understand things better and make informed decisions. He has experience working as a Data Scientist in the consulting domain and holds an engineering degree from IIT Roorkee. His hobbies include watching cricket, reading, and working on side projects.

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