Month: December 2015

Calculating Distance from GPS Coordinates

I’ve been carrying this equation around forever and a day and thought I would share it. With this equation you can calculate the distance between GPS coordinates. I tend to use SI units, but you should be able to easily adjust it for units of your choosing.


using System; 
using System.Device.Location; 
 
namespace J2i.Net.GPS 
{ 
    public static class DistanceCalculator 
    { 
 
        public const double EarthRadiusInMiles = 3956.0; 
        public const double EarthRadiusInKilometers = 6367.0; 
        public const double EarthRadiusInMeters = EarthRadiusInKilometers*1000; 
 
        public static double ToRadian(double val) { return val * (Math.PI / 180); } 
        public static double ToDegree(double val) { return val * 180 / Math.PI; } 
        public static double DiffRadian(double val1, double val2) { return ToRadian(val2) - ToRadian(val1); }   
 
        public static double CalcDistance(GeoCoordinate p1, GeoCoordinate p2) 
        { 
            return CalcDistance(p1.Latitude, p1.Longitude, p2.Latitude, p2.Longitude, EarthRadiusInKilometers); 
        } 
 
        public static Double Bearing(GeoCoordinate p1, GeoCoordinate p2) 
        { 
            return Bearing(p1.Latitude, p1.Longitude, p2.Latitude, p2.Longitude); 
        } 
 
        public static double CalcDistance(double lat1, double lng1, double lat2, double lng2, double radius) 
        { 
            return radius * 2 * Math.Asin(Math.Min(1, Math.Sqrt((Math.Pow(Math.Sin((DiffRadian(lat1, lat2)) / 2.0), 2.0) 
                + Math.Cos(ToRadian(lat1)) * Math.Cos(ToRadian(lat2)) * Math.Pow(Math.Sin((DiffRadian(lng1, lng2)) / 2.0), 2.0))))); 
        } 
 
        public static Double Bearing(double lat1, double lng1, double lat2, double lng2) 
        { 
            { 
                var dLat = lat2 - lat2; 
                var dLon = lng2 - lng1; 
                var dPhi = Math.Log(Math.Tan(lat2 / 2 + Math.PI / 4) / Math.Tan(lat1 / 2 + Math.PI / 4)); 
                var q = (Math.Abs(dLat) > 0) ? dLat / dPhi : Math.Cos(lat1); 
 
                if (Math.Abs(dLon) > Math.PI) 
                { 
                    dLon = dLon > 0 ? -(2 * Math.PI - dLon) : (2 * Math.PI + dLon); 
                } 
                //var d = Math.Sqrt(dLat * dLat + q * q * dLon * dLon) * R; 
                var brng = ToDegree(Math.Atan2(dLon, dPhi)); 
                return brng; 
            } 
        } 
    } 
}