Calculate distance between 2 GPS coordinates

Question

How do I calculate distance between two GPS coordinates (using latitude and longitude)?

Answer 1

Look for haversine with Google; here is my solution:

#include <math.h>
#include "haversine.h"

#define d2r (M_PI / 180.0)

//calculate haversine distance for linear distance
double haversine_km(double lat1, double long1, double lat2, double long2)
{
    double dlong = (long2 - long1) * d2r;
    double dlat = (lat2 - lat1) * d2r;
    double a = pow(sin(dlat/2.0), 2) + cos(lat1*d2r) * cos(lat2*d2r) * pow(sin(dlong/2.0), 2);
    double c = 2 * atan2(sqrt(a), sqrt(1-a));
    double d = 6367 * c;

    return d;
}

double haversine_mi(double lat1, double long1, double lat2, double long2)
{
    double dlong = (long2 - long1) * d2r;
    double dlat = (lat2 - lat1) * d2r;
    double a = pow(sin(dlat/2.0), 2) + cos(lat1*d2r) * cos(lat2*d2r) * pow(sin(dlong/2.0), 2);
    double c = 2 * atan2(sqrt(a), sqrt(1-a));
    double d = 3956 * c; 

    return d;
}

Answer 2

This is very easy to do with geography type in SQL Server 2008.

SELECT geography::Point(lat1, lon1, 4326).STDistance(geography::Point(lat2, lon2, 4326))
-- computes distance in meters using eliptical model, accurate to the mm

4326 is SRID for WGS84 elipsoidal Earth model

Answer 3

you can find a implementation of this (with some good explanation) in F# on fssnip

here are the important parts:

let GreatCircleDistance<[<Measure>] 'u> (R : float<'u>) (p1 : Location) (p2 : Location) =
    let degToRad (x : float<deg>) = System.Math.PI * x / 180.0<deg/rad>

    let sq x = x * x
    // take the sin of the half and square the result
    let sinSqHf (a : float<rad>) = (System.Math.Sin >> sq) (a / 2.0<rad>)
    let cos (a : float<deg>) = System.Math.Cos (degToRad a / 1.0<rad>)

    let dLat = (p2.Latitude - p1.Latitude) |> degToRad
    let dLon = (p2.Longitude - p1.Longitude) |> degToRad

    let a = sinSqHf dLat + cos p1.Latitude * cos p2.Latitude * sinSqHf dLon
    let c = 2.0 * System.Math.Atan2(System.Math.Sqrt(a), System.Math.Sqrt(1.0-a))

    R * c

Answer 4

Here's my implementation in Elixir

defmodule Geo do
  @earth_radius_km 6371
  @earth_radius_sm 3958.748
  @earth_radius_nm 3440.065
  @feet_per_sm 5280

  @d2r :math.pi / 180

  def deg_to_rad(deg), do: deg * @d2r

  def great_circle_distance(p1, p2, :km), do: haversine(p1, p2) * @earth_radius_km
  def great_circle_distance(p1, p2, :sm), do: haversine(p1, p2) * @earth_radius_sm
  def great_circle_distance(p1, p2, :nm), do: haversine(p1, p2) * @earth_radius_nm
  def great_circle_distance(p1, p2, :m), do: great_circle_distance(p1, p2, :km) * 1000
  def great_circle_distance(p1, p2, :ft), do: great_circle_distance(p1, p2, :sm) * @feet_per_sm

  @doc """
  Calculate the [Haversine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haversine_formula)
  distance between two coordinates. Result is in radians. This result can be
  multiplied by the sphere's radius in any unit to get the distance in that unit.
  For example, multiple the result of this function by the Earth's radius in
  kilometres and you get the distance between the two given points in kilometres.
  """
  def haversine({lat1, lon1}, {lat2, lon2}) do
    dlat = deg_to_rad(lat2 - lat1)
    dlon = deg_to_rad(lon2 - lon1)

    radlat1 = deg_to_rad(lat1)
    radlat2 = deg_to_rad(lat2)

    a = :math.pow(:math.sin(dlat / 2), 2) +
        :math.pow(:math.sin(dlon / 2), 2) *
        :math.cos(radlat1) * :math.cos(radlat2)

    2 * :math.atan2(:math.sqrt(a), :math.sqrt(1 - a))
  end
end

Answer 5

Here it is in C# (lat and long in radians):

double CalculateGreatCircleDistance(double lat1, double long1, double lat2, double long2, double radius)
{
    return radius * Math.Acos(
        Math.Sin(lat1) * Math.Sin(lat2)
        + Math.Cos(lat1) * Math.Cos(lat2) * Math.Cos(long2 - long1));
}

If your lat and long are in degrees then divide by 180/PI to convert to radians.

Answer 6

I needed to calculate a lot of distances between the points for my project, so I went ahead and tried to optimize the code, I have found here. On average in different browsers my new implementation runs 2 times faster than the most upvoted answer.

function distance(lat1, lon1, lat2, lon2) {
  var p = 0.017453292519943295;    // Math.PI / 180
  var c = Math.cos;
  var a = 0.5 - c((lat2 - lat1) * p)/2 + 
          c(lat1 * p) * c(lat2 * p) * 
          (1 - c((lon2 - lon1) * p))/2;

  return 12742 * Math.asin(Math.sqrt(a)); // 2 * R; R = 6371 km
}

You can play with my jsPerf and see the results here.

Recently I needed to do the same in python, so here is a python implementation:

from math import cos, asin, sqrt
def distance(lat1, lon1, lat2, lon2):
    p = 0.017453292519943295
    a = 0.5 - cos((lat2 - lat1) * p)/2 + cos(lat1 * p) * cos(lat2 * p) * (1 - cos((lon2 - lon1) * p)) / 2
    return 12742 * asin(sqrt(a))

And for the sake of completeness: Haversine on wiki.