Using Linestring distance in meters with GeoTools?

Question

I want to use GeoTools for working with gis data. I'm most concerned about distance calculations, not so much about drawing a map. What I still couldn't figure out is how to make distance calculations work smoothly on the WGS84 spheroid. As an example I want to calculate the distance (in meters) between two linestrings. The postgresql code would be

SELECT
  ST_Distance(
    ST_GeomFromText('LINESTRING(13.45 52.47,13.46 52.48)')::Geography,
    ST_GeomFromText('LINESTRING(13.00 52.00,13.1 52.2)')::Geography
)

The output is 38364.138314182

With geotools I would imagine something like

import org.geotools.geometry.jts.JTSFactoryFinder
import org.geotools.geometry.jts.WKTReader2,
import org.geotools.factory.Hints,
import org.geotools.referencing.crs.DefaultGeographicCRS

Hints hints = new Hints(Hints.CRS, DefaultGeographicCRS.WGS84)
GeometryFactory geometryFactory = JTSFactoryFinder.getGeometryFactory(hints)
WKTReader2 reader = new WKTReader2(geometryFactory)
Geometry g1 = reader.read('LINESTRING(13.45 52.47,13.46 52.48)')
Geometry g2 = reader.read('LINESTRING(13.00 52.00,13.1 52.2)')
System.out.println(g1.distance(g2))

Now the output is 0.442040722106004 which is the same as

SELECT
  ST_Distance(
    ST_GeomFromText('LINESTRING(13.45 52.47,13.46 52.48)'),
    ST_GeomFromText('LINESTRING(13.00 52.00,13.1 52.2)')
  )

which is the euclidean distance in degrees. For points I can use the OrthodromicDistanceCalculator but not for lines. Plus, it is very inconvenient to specify that distance calculations should be based on WGS84 over and over again.

Answer 1

Using the following code I can get an answer of 38355.3256m (which is probably close enough) - I imagine that with a more careful choice of central point a more "accurate" result might be obtained.

    Geometry g1 = reader.read("LINESTRING(13.45 52.47,13.46 52.48)");
    Geometry g2 = reader.read("LINESTRING(13.00 52.00,13.1 52.2)");
    System.out.println(g1.distance(g2));
    CoordinateReferenceSystem auto = CRS.decode("AUTO:42001,13.45,52.3");
    System.out.println(auto);
    MathTransform transform = CRS.findMathTransform(DefaultGeographicCRS.WGS84,
            auto);
    Geometry g3 = JTS.transform(g1, transform);
    Geometry g4 = JTS.transform(g2, transform);
    System.out.println(g3.distance(g4));