Is this a valid way to calculate an angle (in radians) from one CLLocation to another?
-(float)angleFromLocation:(CLLocationCoordinate2D)start toLocation:(CLLocationCoordinate2D)end {
float deltaX = start.latitude - end.latitude;
float deltaY = start.longitude - end.longitude;
float ang = atan2(deltaY, deltaX);
return ang;}
Please advise!
Any help will be much appreciated.
I used a variant of this question and answer and it works well:
double DegreesToRadians(double degrees) {return degrees * M_PI / 180.0;};
double RadiansToDegrees(double radians) {return radians * 180.0/M_PI;};
- (double)bearingFromLocation:(CLLocation *)fromLocation toLocation:(CLLocation *)toLocation
{
double lat1 = DegreesToRadians(fromLocation.coordinate.latitude);
double lon1 = DegreesToRadians(fromLocation.coordinate.longitude);
double lat2 = DegreesToRadians(toLocation.coordinate.latitude);
double lon2 = DegreesToRadians(toLocation.coordinate.longitude);
double dLon = lon2 - lon1;
double y = sin(dLon) * cos(lat2);
double x = cos(lat1) * sin(lat2) - sin(lat1) * cos(lat2) * cos(dLon);
double radiansBearing = atan2(y, x);
double degreesBearing = RadiansToDegrees(radiansBearing);
if (degreesBearing >= 0) {
return degreesBearing;
} else {
return degreesBearing + 360.0;
}
}
Swift 4 version:
extension FloatingPoint {
var degreesToRadians: Self { return self * .pi / 180 }
var radiansToDegrees: Self { return self * 180 / .pi }
}
extension CLLocationCoordinate2D: Equatable {
func heading(to: CLLocationCoordinate2D) -> Double {
let lat1 = self.latitude.degreesToRadians
let lon1 = self.longitude.degreesToRadians
let lat2 = to.latitude.degreesToRadians
let lon2 = to.longitude.degreesToRadians
let dLon = lon2 - lon1
let y = sin(dLon) * cos(lat2)
let x = cos(lat1) * sin(lat2) - sin(lat1) * cos(lat2) * cos(dLon)
let headingDegrees = atan2(y, x).radiansToDegrees
if headingDegrees >= 0 {
return headingDegrees
} else {
return headingDegrees + 360
}
}
}
The best method I found for this computation was to use the Spherical Law of Cosines. There is a C function to do this available here on github called headingInDegrees. It takes two lat/long pairs and returns heading:
/*-------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Given two lat/lon points on earth, calculates the heading
* from lat1/lon1 to lat2/lon2.
*
* lat/lon params in degrees
* result in degrees
*-------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
double headingInDegrees(double lat1, double lon1, double lat2, double lon2);
Since a CLLocationCoordinate2d contains latitude and longitude, it is easy to pass those two fields to this function and get the heading back.