Re: earthdistance compass bearing

[Steve Crawford <scrawford@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 06/18/2013 10:42 AM, Jeff Herrin wrote:

I'm trying to get a compass bearing (N,S,NW,etc) using earthdistance. I can successfully get the distance between 2 points using either the point or cube method, but I've been struggling with getting the bearing. Any tips?

PostGIS has some functions that may be of use but might be overkill depending on your use but I don't see anything in earthdistance.

What are you trying to solve?

It's one thing if you are looking for a one-degree-accurate magnetic-variation-compensated great-circle heading for a 6,000km flight using WGS84 projection (initial-heading, of course, as it will vary over the course of your travel).

If you just want to be accurate to eight compass-points over a few city-blocks then simple trig is probably more than sufficient.

Cheers,
Steve