Can I change degrees to radians by simply changing from sind to sin?

I have a function that does a basic calculation using some trig. Instead of theta being in degrees can I change it to radians by simply dropping the "d" in sind or cosd or do I have to multiply by pi/180 as well? Here is the function.

theta = atand(n/e);

% Calculating length of vector produced from given coordinates
rTop = sqrt((e^2) + (n^2));

% Calculating length of vector produced from the angle calculated above
rBottom = ((200*300))/ (sqrt((300^2)*(sind(theta))^2 + (200^2)*(cosd(theta))^2));

% If the given coordinates produces a vector that remains within the bottom
% ellipse then the height is equal to the depth of the mine
if rTop - rBottom <= 0
    
    height = depth;

Answer 1

[Matt J]

cos and sin will assume the input angles are measured in radians. If theta is in degrees, you must convert to radians in order to get proper output from sin and cos

[Nathan Jalal]

so e and n are variables in meters, does that make theta a value in degrees if I use atan(n/e)?

[Matt J]

theta will be in degrees if you use atand and in radians if you use atan. The units of e and n are irrelevant.

[Nathan Jalal]

Thank you!

[John D'Errico]

atan ALWAYS returns numbers in radians.

atand ALWAYS returns numbers scaled as degrees.

The ratio as an argument to atan has no impact on whether you get degrees or radians. It is purely your choice as to which function you use, if you want degrees or radians as an output.