Math question about gps co'ords

Hi guys
I’m trying to work out the simplest and most efficient way to determine if a current gps position lat and long is inside a box formed of 4 gps lat/long points.
Now I could do it by comparing the current position lat long against each of the four points in turn but I don’t think that’s very efficient and long way to do this. I did a bit of research and came up with things like bilinear interpolation but to be honest it might as well try to learn brain surgery first based on what I saw (algebra was never my strongest subject when I was at school back in the annuls of time)
Any suggestions are most welcome :slight_smile:

Ray casting is the way to do it :slight_smile:

That way you can have a any sided polygon.
I created some code awhile back for a GPS boundary detection fail safe of a UAV…


public static bool LocationInsideBoundry(Position point, Position[] boundry)
        {
            bool insideBoundry = false;
            try
            {
                int j = boundry.Length - 1;
                for (int i = 0; i < boundry.Length; i++)
                {
                    if (boundry[i].Longitude < point.Longitude && boundry[j].Longitude >= point.Longitude ||
                    boundry[j].Longitude < point.Longitude && boundry[i].Longitude >= point.Longitude)
                    {
                        if (boundry[i].Latitude +
                        (point.Longitude - boundry[i].Longitude) / (boundry[j].Longitude - boundry[i].Longitude) * (boundry[j].Latitude - boundry[i].Latitude) < point.Latitude)
                        {
                            insideBoundry = !insideBoundry;
                        }
                    }
                    j = i;
                }
            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
                return false;
            }
            return insideBoundry;
        }

2 Likes

Forgot to add Postion is:


public struct Position
{
        public double Latitude;
        public double Longitude;
        public double Altitude;
        public string LatitudeDms;
        public string LongitudeDms;
}

Many thanks Justin. I edited the topic to a question and gave you a tick for your efforts. Much appreciated.
I will give this a go later on :slight_smile:

@ HughB - Cheers fella, i have a few other Library Bits and Bobs for doing GPS type fluff like distance between points and bearing to points etc if it helps.

You are welcome chap :slight_smile:
I’m kinda getting really excited about gps at the moment so anything you have would be most welcome. Maybe post it to code share??

I’ll dig it up and put a bit more polish on it before i add it, what sort of thing are you trying to do so i can focus on those bits first perhaps.

Mainly checking for position in zones but distance to a point would also be very usefull

Brilliant! Also saw the GPS library [1] you just posted on codeshare - will save me some time on my rover project!

Cheers!
-Steve

[1] http://www.tinyclr.com/forum/topic?id=8270

There is a function in his library that does that: GetDistanceBetweenPoints(Position pos1, Position pos2)

Does this code consider plus and minus values?

@ Mike - which bit?

@ Mike - if you take these 2 locations

51.974852, -0.221769 and 51.972303, -0.224007 will give you a distance of 0.3225km and a bearing of 208deg

Does this cover your +/- values or are you talking about something else?

I was thinking of something like -10, 10 to 10,-10?

I did not study the code in detail, so there might not be an issue. But, from prior experiences, positive to negative transitions always cause a problem.

No it;s not an issue -36.847593,174.757641 (Downtown Auckland NZ) to -36.815208,174.743798 (North Shore Auckland NZ) gives you a distance of 3.8km which you can see in the attachment Giggle backs up

Also using your -10, 10 to 10,-10 +/- example

Auckland -36.847593,174.757641
New York 40.71710,-74.014556

We get a distance of 14,206 km

So all good and you’ll need a battery bigger than Elvis to get the uC from point A to B

Or a cigarette lighter to USB adapter in the car :slight_smile:

1 Like

For that trip you would might need a Toybota instead(Toybota | Top Gear Wiki | Fandom) :wink:

One of my favorite episodes.

1 Like

Great!

mine too, as Clarkson would say “there is nothing that cant be solved with more power”

My absolute fav is the Reliant Robin Space Shuttle !