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I'm looking for a formula that takes a long/lat coordinate and a degree heading, (e.g. "I'm standing in San Francisco and I'm facing 45º from north"), and which can draw a line across a map projecting your path along a globe from that point, along that heading, and back around to you.

So, for example...

  • If you were standing at the equator facing due west, it would just be a horizontal line along the equator.
  • If you were facing due north, it would be a vertical line from your position, and another vertical line at the longitude exactly halfway around the world.
  • If you are standing at a random point and facing a random heading, it would create one of those "sin-wave" paths along the map, like we often see on maps of space stations or shuttles, starting and ending at your current location.

Does a formula like that exist? It seems like it would have to, since it would be one of the most basic formulas for calculating orbital paths and such. But I haven't been able to find anything like it...

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    Here's a post that should be pretty helpful: stackoverflow.com/questions/10223898/… The OP states they are wanting to draw a line of some distance from a starting point in some direction. Making the length of that line "long" enough will give you pretty good representation of that "sin-wave". There is a link to another post that has a python script with much of the necessary math.
    – evv_gis
    Oct 15, 2014 at 17:45
  • Also similar: gis.stackexchange.com/questions/81124/… though it would take a good long time to work back to the same place (the Earth is an oblate spheroid, not a sphere).
    – Vince
    Oct 15, 2014 at 17:50

2 Answers 2

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I think the formula you are looking for is the haversine formula.

See the Destination point given distance and bearing from start point section.

Here's an R implementation to add to those given on the site:

# Q: From London, what is 500 kilometres away in the heading of 110 degrees

# London coordinates
earthR <- 6371 # km
olat <- 51.5073509 / 180 * pi
olng <- -0.1277583 / 180 * pi
distance <- 5000 # km
compass_heading <- 110 / 180 * pi

# haversine equation
dlat <- asin(sin(olat) * cos(distance/earthR) + cos(olat) * sin(distance/earthR) * cos(compass_heading))
dlng <- olng + atan2(sin(compass_heading) * sin(distance/earthR) * cos(olat), cos(distance/earthR) - sin(olat) * sin(dlat))

# convert to decimal degrees
dlat <- dlat * 180 / pi
dlng <- dlng * 180 / pi

# A: Luxembourg.

I'm not sure how accurate it is. I will compare it with other methods and see ...

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What you are looking for is to calculate points along a path starting at a specific lat/lon and bearing. You will want to pick an distance increment (e.g., 100 miles) to incremently plot points following the bearing across the globe.

This stackoverflow answer gives such a formula using the Great Circle method for approximately the spherical of the globe:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7222382/get-lat-long-given-current-point-distance-and-bearing

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