Calculating Distance between two Latitude and Long

Question

I'm calculating the distance between two GeoCoordinates. I'm testing my app against 3-4 other apps. When I'm calculating distance, I tend to get an average of 3.3 miles for my calculation whereas other apps are getting 3.5 miles. It's a big difference for the calculation I'm trying to perform. Are there any good class libraries out there for calculating distance? I'm calculating it like this in C#:

public static double Calculate(double sLatitude,double sLongitude, double eLatitude, 
                               double eLongitude)
{
    var radiansOverDegrees = (Math.PI / 180.0);

    var sLatitudeRadians = sLatitude * radiansOverDegrees;
    var sLongitudeRadians = sLongitude * radiansOverDegrees;
    var eLatitudeRadians = eLatitude * radiansOverDegrees;
    var eLongitudeRadians = eLongitude * radiansOverDegrees;

    var dLongitude = eLongitudeRadians - sLongitudeRadians;
    var dLatitude = eLatitudeRadians - sLatitudeRadians;

    var result1 = Math.Pow(Math.Sin(dLatitude / 2.0), 2.0) + 
                  Math.Cos(sLatitudeRadians) * Math.Cos(eLatitudeRadians) * 
                  Math.Pow(Math.Sin(dLongitude / 2.0), 2.0);

    // Using 3956 as the number of miles around the earth
    var result2 = 3956.0 * 2.0 * 
                  Math.Atan2(Math.Sqrt(result1), Math.Sqrt(1.0 - result1));

    return result2;
}

What could I be doing wrong? Should I calculate it in km first and then convert to miles?

Answer 1

Based on Elliot Wood's function, this C function is working...

#define SIM_Degree_to_Radian(x) ((float)x * 0.017453292F)
#define SIM_PI_VALUE                         (3.14159265359)

float GPS_Distance(float lat1, float lon1, float lat2, float lon2)
{
   float theta;
   float dist;

   theta = lon1 - lon2;

   lat1 = SIM_Degree_to_Radian(lat1);
   lat2 = SIM_Degree_to_Radian(lat2);
   theta = SIM_Degree_to_Radian(theta);

   dist = (sin(lat1) * sin(lat2)) + (cos(lat1) * cos(lat2) * cos(theta));
   dist = acos(dist);

//   dist = dist * 180.0 / SIM_PI_VALUE;
//   dist = dist * 60.0 * 1.1515;
//   /* Convert to km */
//   dist = dist * 1.609344;

   dist *= 6370.693486F;

   return (dist);
}

You may change it to double. It returns the value in km.

Answer 2

You can use System.device.Location:

System.device.Location.GeoCoordinate gc = new System.device.Location.GeoCoordinate(){
Latitude = yourLatitudePt1,
Longitude = yourLongitudePt1
};

System.device.Location.GeoCoordinate gc2 = new System.device.Location.GeoCoordinate(){
Latitude = yourLatitudePt2,
Longitude = yourLongitudePt2
};

Double distance = gc2.getDistanceTo(gc);

good luck

Answer 3

Try this:

    public double getDistance(GeoCoordinate p1, GeoCoordinate p2)
    {
        double d = p1.Latitude * 0.017453292519943295;
        double num3 = p1.Longitude * 0.017453292519943295;
        double num4 = p2.Latitude * 0.017453292519943295;
        double num5 = p2.Longitude * 0.017453292519943295;
        double num6 = num5 - num3;
        double num7 = num4 - d;
        double num8 = Math.Pow(Math.Sin(num7 / 2.0), 2.0) + ((Math.Cos(d) * Math.Cos(num4)) * Math.Pow(Math.Sin(num6 / 2.0), 2.0));
        double num9 = 2.0 * Math.Atan2(Math.Sqrt(num8), Math.Sqrt(1.0 - num8));
        return (6376500.0 * num9);
    }

Answer 4

Calculating Distance between Latitude and Longitude points...

        double Lat1 = Convert.ToDouble(latitude);
        double Long1 = Convert.ToDouble(longitude);

        double Lat2 = 30.678;
        double Long2 = 45.786;
        double circumference = 40000.0; // Earth's circumference at the equator in km
        double distance = 0.0;
        double latitude1Rad = DegreesToRadians(Lat1);
        double latititude2Rad = DegreesToRadians(Lat2);
        double longitude1Rad = DegreesToRadians(Long1);
        double longitude2Rad = DegreesToRadians(Long2);
        double logitudeDiff = Math.Abs(longitude1Rad - longitude2Rad);
        if (logitudeDiff > Math.PI)
        {
            logitudeDiff = 2.0 * Math.PI - logitudeDiff;
        }
        double angleCalculation =
            Math.Acos(
              Math.Sin(latititude2Rad) * Math.Sin(latitude1Rad) +
              Math.Cos(latititude2Rad) * Math.Cos(latitude1Rad) * Math.Cos(logitudeDiff));
        distance = circumference * angleCalculation / (2.0 * Math.PI);
        return distance;

Answer 5

For those who are using Xamarin and don't have access to the GeoCoordinate class, you can use the Android Location class instead:

public static double GetDistanceBetweenCoordinates (double lat1, double lng1, double lat2, double lng2) {
            var coords1 = new Location ("");
            coords1.Latitude = lat1;
            coords1.Longitude = lng1;
            var coords2 = new Location ("");
            coords2.Latitude = lat2;
            coords2.Longitude = lng2;
            return coords1.DistanceTo (coords2);
        }