How do I calculate distance between two GPS coordinates (using latitude and longitude)?
Geolocation – Calculate Distance Between Two GPS Coordinates
geographygeolocationgeometrylatitude-longitudemath
Related Solutions
The Haversine formula assumes a spherical earth. However, the shape of the earh is more complex. An oblate spheroid model will give better results.
If such accuracy is needed, you should better use Vincenty inverse formula. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincenty's_formulae for details. Using it, you can get a 0.5mm accuracy for the spheroid model.
There is no perfect formula, since the real shape of the earth is too complex to be expressed by a formula. Moreover, the shape of earth changes due to climate events (see http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/earthandsun/earthshape.html), and also changes over time due to the rotation of the earth.
You should also note that the method above does not take altitudes into account, and assumes a sea-level oblate spheroid.
Edit 10-Jul-2010: I found out that there are rare situations for which Vincenty inverse formula does not converge to the declared accuracy. A better idea is to use GeographicLib (see http://sourceforge.net/projects/geographiclib/) which is also more accurate.
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/location/Location.html
Look into distanceTo
Returns the approximate distance in meters between this location and the given location. Distance is defined using the WGS84 ellipsoid.
or distanceBetween
Computes the approximate distance in meters between two locations, and optionally the initial and final bearings of the shortest path between them. Distance and bearing are defined using the WGS84 ellipsoid.
You can create a Location object from a latitude and longitude:
Location locationA = new Location("point A");
locationA.setLatitude(latA);
locationA.setLongitude(lngA);
Location locationB = new Location("point B");
locationB.setLatitude(latB);
locationB.setLongitude(lngB);
float distance = locationA.distanceTo(locationB);
or
private double meterDistanceBetweenPoints(float lat_a, float lng_a, float lat_b, float lng_b) {
float pk = (float) (180.f/Math.PI);
float a1 = lat_a / pk;
float a2 = lng_a / pk;
float b1 = lat_b / pk;
float b2 = lng_b / pk;
double t1 = Math.cos(a1) * Math.cos(a2) * Math.cos(b1) * Math.cos(b2);
double t2 = Math.cos(a1) * Math.sin(a2) * Math.cos(b1) * Math.sin(b2);
double t3 = Math.sin(a1) * Math.sin(b1);
double tt = Math.acos(t1 + t2 + t3);
return 6366000 * tt;
}
Best Answer
Calculate the distance between two coordinates by latitude and longitude, including a Javascript implementation.
West and South locations are negative. Remember minutes and seconds are out of 60 so S31 30' is -31.50 degrees.
Don't forget to convert degrees to radians. Many languages have this function. Or its a simple calculation:
radians = degrees * PI / 180
.Here are some examples of usage: