[hydro-scope]

Description

First a big thank you for this most useful library!

The aim of this PR is to greatly optimise the interpolation of cubes along trajectories ( for instance a set of of positions in time and space [(x_1, y_1, z_1, t_1),...,(x_n, y_n, z_n, t_n)] ). Where the existing code used to slice the cubes on each dimensions before interpolating, this code only interpolates on the required points of the trajectory, greatly reducing the computational costs.

I've submitted this PR because it solves an issue I've been having with using iris, and I hope it might be useful to others.

I've just discovered the checklist below, and I'll be adding to this PR to comply with it.

Cheers

Checklist

Important

The Iris core developers are here to help! If anything below is unclear, just post a comment asking for help 😊

• Included a What's New entry
• Incorporated type hints in any changed code
• Checked if tests need updating
• Checked if benchmarks need updating
• Checked if documentation needs updating
  • Docstrings (we love code examples!)
  • User Manual pages
• Checked if dependencies need updating
• Confirmed that the GitHub 'checks' on this PR are passing ✅
  (further reading)

---

Tip

Things you can trigger on this PR:

• Add this label to trigger benchmarks: benchmark_this Request that this pull request be benchmarked to check if it introduces performance shifts
• Visit this URL - swapping 9999 for this PR's number - to re-trigger the CLA check:
  https://cla-assistant.io/check/SciTools/iris?pullRequest=9999

[trexfeathers]

Thanks for your interest @hydro-scope. We'll do our best to get to this in the coming weeks.

I think @jamesp will be interested to hear Iris + friends are useful to the sailing industry

[pp-mo]

From @SciTools/peloton just permitted the tests running.
Please let us know any further help you may need!