Differentiate the position vector with respect to the three coordinates:
Their pairwise dot products vanish. For example, . Thus these are orthogonal coordinates wherever the coordinate tangents are nonzero. Their scale factors of orthogonal coordinates are
The absolute Jacobian determinant is their product, giving
The ordered coordinate system is left handed: . 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 in the volume formula; the original PDF correctly prints .
Put . For , elimination of gives
These are oblate spheroids with equatorial radius and polar radius , flattened along the axis. At the limiting surface is the disk , .
For , elimination of instead gives
These are one-sheet hyperboloids of revolution, restricted to their upper half for and lower half for . The restriction matters because . At , the surface degenerates to the exterior equatorial plane , ; at it degenerates to the corresponding half of the axis.
Finally, fixed specifies a vertical half-plane through the axis, with horizontal direction . The two values and together give a full plane. These surfaces form the mutually orthogonal families of the hyperbolic parametrization of oblate spheroidal coordinates.