distCosine function

'Law of cosines' great circle distance

The shortest distance between two points (i.e., the 'great-circle-distance' or 'as the crow flies'), according to the 'law of the cosines'. This method assumes a spherical earth, ignoring ellipsoidal effects. 1.1

distCosine(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

Returns

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

References

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

Author(s)

Robert Hijmans

See Also

distGeo, distHaversine, distVincentySphere, distVincentyEllipsoid,distMeeus

Examples

distCosine(c(0,0),c(90,90))