R: 'Haversine' great circle distance

distHaversine {geosphere} | R Documentation

## 'Haversine' great circle distance

### Description

The shortest distance between two points (i.e., the 'great-circle-distance' or 'as the crow flies'), according to the 'haversine method'. This method assumes a spherical earth, ignoring ellipsoidal effects.

### Usage

    distHaversine(p1, p2, r=6378137)

### Arguments

`p1` | longitude/latitude of point(s). Can be a vector of two numbers, a matrix of 2 columns (first one is longitude, second is latitude) or a SpatialPoints* object
`p2` | as above
`r` | radius of the earth; default = 6378137 m

### Details

The Haversine ('half-versed-sine') formula was published by R.W. Sinnott in 1984, although it has been known for much longer. At that time computational precision was lower than today (15 digits precision). With current precision, the spherical law of cosines formula appears to give equally good results down to very small distances. If you want greater accuracy, you could use the `distVincentyEllipsoid` method.

### Value

Vector of distances in the same unit as `r` (default is meters)

### Author(s)

Chris Veness and Robert Hijmans

### References

Sinnott, R.W, 1984. Virtues of the Haversine. Sky and Telescope 68(2): 159

http://www.movable-type.co.uk/scripts/latlong.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_circle_distance

### See Also

`distCosine, distVincentySphere, distVincentyEllipsoid, distMeeus`

### Examples

    distHaversine(c(0,0),c(90,90))

[Package geosphere version 1.5-5 Index]