[maemo-users] Fwd: [maemo-users] how to determine track's length from GPX-file

[From: Nils Faerber]

Armin M. Warda schrieb:
> Nils wrote:
>> I do not want to start nitpicking here but that solution is rather inaccurate. 
>> It might serve as a first rough estimation
>> but it neglects the fact that the earth is not a perfect sphere.
> How (in-)accurate is it? Possible to quantify?
> Up to 5% error would be tolerable for me,
> because I only use it for cycling.

Hmm... good question ;)
It largely depends on where you are. If you are near the equator where
the used circumference is correct the error should be pretty small. The
more north/south you go the higher the error.

I think a good start for comparison could be the following page:
	http://williams.best.vwh.net/gccalc.htm
There you can enter two points using WGS84 coordinates and calculate the
distance between them. Take the same two points for this page and the
ruby script and you should get a good error approximation.

Oh, and let us know about the result ;)

>   regards, Armin.
Cheers
  nils faerber

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