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In Cartesian coordinates, $\nabla \Phi =({\Phi }_x,{\Phi }_y,{\Phi }_z)$. For orthogonal coordinates, let $\mathbf{r}(q_1,q_2,q_3)$ be the position, $h_i=|\partial \mathbf{r}/\partial q_i|$ the scale factors of orthogonal coordinates, and ${\mathbf{e}}_i=h_i^{-1}\partial \mathbf{r}/\partial q_i$ the corresponding unit vectors. Since $d\mathbf{r}={\sum }_i{h}_i{\mathbf{e}}_{i}d{q}_i$ and $d\Phi =\nabla \Phi \cdot d\mathbf{r}={\sum }_i{\Phi }_{q_i}d{q}_i$, comparison of independent increments gives the gradient in orthogonal coordinates:For the hyperbolic parametrization of oblate spheroidal coordinates, the three coordinate tangent vectors areTheir pairwise dot products are zero. Their squared Euclidean norms are ${\sinh }^{2}R+{\sin }^2\theta$, ${\sinh }^{2}R+{\sin }^2\theta$, and ${\cosh }^{2}R{\cos }^2\theta$, respectively. Thus the coordinate surfaces meet orthogonally wherever this is a regular coordinate chart, andThe last expression uses the usual latitude range $|\theta |<\pi /2$; without that range a scale factor is its absolute value. Axial or ring degeneracies are excluded from a regular chart.

Differentiate the position vector with respect to the three coordinates:Their pairwise dot products vanish. For example, ${\mathbf{r}}_{\rho }\cdot {\mathbf{r}}_u=-\sinh \rho \cosh \rho \sin u\cos u+\sinh \rho \cosh \rho \sin u\cos u=0$. Thus these are orthogonal coordinates wherever the coordinate tangents are nonzero. Their scale factors of orthogonal coordinates areThe absolute Jacobian determinant is their product, givingThe ordered coordinate system is left handed: ${\mathbf{r}}_{\rho }\cdot ({\mathbf{r}}_u\times {\mathbf{r}}_v)=-h_{\rho }{h}_u{h}_v$. The volume measure uses the absolute value. The axis and the focal circle contain coordinate degeneracies, as expected for oblate spheroidal coordinates. This is the hyperbolic parametrization of oblate spheroidal coordinates. The local TeX has an OCR substitution ${\sinh }^{2}u$ in the volume formula; the original PDF correctly prints ${\sin }^{2}u$.

Put $s^2=x^2+y^2$. For $\rho >0$, elimination of $u$ givesThese are oblate spheroids with equatorial radius $\cosh \rho$ and polar radius $\sinh \rho$, flattened along the $z$ axis. At $\rho =0$ the limiting surface is the disk $z=0$, $s\le 1$.

For $0<|u|<\pi /2$, elimination of $\rho$ instead givesThese are one-sheet hyperboloids of revolution, restricted to their upper half for $u>0$ and lower half for $u<0$. The restriction matters because $\rho \ge 0$. At $u=0$, the surface degenerates to the exterior equatorial plane $z=0$, $s\ge 1$; at $u=\pm \pi /2$ it degenerates to the corresponding half of the $z$ axis.

Finally, fixed $v$ specifies a vertical half-plane through the $z$ axis, with horizontal direction $(\cos v,\sin v)$. The two values $v$ and $v+\pi$ together give a full plane. These surfaces form the mutually orthogonal families of the hyperbolic parametrization of oblate spheroidal coordinates.