Armin M. Warda schrieb: > Nils wrote: >> I do not want to start nitpicking here but that solution is rather inaccurate. >> It might serve as a first rough estimation >> but it neglects the fact that the earth is not a perfect sphere. > How (in-)accurate is it? Possible to quantify? > Up to 5% error would be tolerable for me, > because I only use it for cycling. Hmm... good question ;) It largely depends on where you are. If you are near the equator where the used circumference is correct the error should be pretty small. The more north/south you go the higher the error. I think a good start for comparison could be the following page: http://williams.best.vwh.net/gccalc.htm There you can enter two points using WGS84 coordinates and calculate the distance between them. Take the same two points for this page and the ruby script and you should get a good error approximation. Oh, and let us know about the result ;) > regards, Armin. Cheers nils faerber -- kernel concepts Tel: +49-271-771091-12 Dreisbachstr. 24 Fax: +49-271-771091-19 D-57250 Netphen Mob: +49-176-21024535 --
