{ "id": 238800, "title": "Vincenty’s formula: Distances on Earth with extreme accuracy", "url": "/competitions/google-smartphone-decimeter-challenge/discussion/238800", "author_name": "Carl McBride Ellis", "post_date": "2021-05-13T13:23:01.852000", "votes": 33, "comment_count": 0, "views": 0, "content": "

In this competition precision is paramount. There is the haversine formula for calculating the distance between two points given their longitudes and latitudes, but this assumes that the Earth is a sphere. However, Vincenty produced formulas assuming that the Earth is an oblate spheroid, and is accurate to within 1mm.

\n

Given that we seem to be using the Reference ellipsoid for World Geodetic System of 1984 it may be worth using the Vincenty formula rather than the haversine formula.

\n

These formula are very complicated, but thankfully there is a GitHub package \"Vincenty\" to make things easy:

\n
\n

!pip install vincenty

\n
\n

for example:

\n
\n

from vincenty import vincenty
\n boston = (42.3541165, -71.0693514)
\n newyork = (40.7791472, -73.9680804)
\n vincenty(boston, newyork)

\n

298.396057

\n
\n

All the best, and good luck!

", "messages": [ { "id": 1305775, "postDate": "2021-05-13T13:23:01.853Z", "content": "

In this competition precision is paramount. There is the haversine formula for calculating the distance between two points given their longitudes and latitudes, but this assumes that the Earth is a sphere. However, Vincenty produced formulas assuming that the Earth is an oblate spheroid, and is accurate to within 1mm.

\n

Given that we seem to be using the Reference ellipsoid for World Geodetic System of 1984 it may be worth using the Vincenty formula rather than the haversine formula.

\n

These formula are very complicated, but thankfully there is a GitHub package \"Vincenty\" to make things easy:

\n
\n

!pip install vincenty

\n
\n

for example:

\n
\n

from vincenty import vincenty
\n boston = (42.3541165, -71.0693514)
\n newyork = (40.7791472, -73.9680804)
\n vincenty(boston, newyork)

\n

298.396057

\n
\n

All the best, and good luck!

", "rawMarkdown": "In this competition precision is paramount. There is the [haversine formula](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haversine_formula) for calculating the distance between two points given their longitudes and latitudes, but this assumes that the Earth is a sphere. However, Vincenty produced formulas assuming that the Earth is an oblate spheroid, and is accurate to within 1mm.\n\nGiven that we seem to be using the [Reference ellipsoid for World Geodetic System of 1984](https://www.mathworks.com/help/map/ref/wgs84ellipsoid.html) it may be worth using the Vincenty formula rather than the haversine formula.\n\nThese formula are *very* complicated, but thankfully there is a GitHub package [\"Vincenty\"](https://github.com/maurycyp/vincenty) to make things easy:\n\n> `!pip install vincenty`\n\nfor example:\n\n> `from vincenty import vincenty`\n> `boston = (42.3541165, -71.0693514)`\n> `newyork = (40.7791472, -73.9680804)`\n> `vincenty(boston, newyork)`\n\n> 298.396057\n\nAll the best, and good luck!", "votes": 33 } ], "comments": [], "raw_markdown_by_id": { "1305775": "In this competition precision is paramount. There is the [haversine formula](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haversine_formula) for calculating the distance between two points given their longitudes and latitudes, but this assumes that the Earth is a sphere. However, Vincenty produced formulas assuming that the Earth is an oblate spheroid, and is accurate to within 1mm.\n\nGiven that we seem to be using the [Reference ellipsoid for World Geodetic System of 1984](https://www.mathworks.com/help/map/ref/wgs84ellipsoid.html) it may be worth using the Vincenty formula rather than the haversine formula.\n\nThese formula are *very* complicated, but thankfully there is a GitHub package [\"Vincenty\"](https://github.com/maurycyp/vincenty) to make things easy:\n\n> `!pip install vincenty`\n\nfor example:\n\n> `from vincenty import vincenty`\n> `boston = (42.3541165, -71.0693514)`\n> `newyork = (40.7791472, -73.9680804)`\n> `vincenty(boston, newyork)`\n\n> 298.396057\n\nAll the best, and good luck!" } }