On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 10:36 PM, Chris Hunter <[email protected]> wrote: > If someone does feel like coding up an intersection/resection surveying > plugin for JOSM, it looks like many of the calculations involve Vicenty's > Formula.
Wow that's complicated. Sure, that's the way to go if you need millimeter precision. I actually had in mind some much simpler methods with a flat earth approximation and a relatively simple cylindrical projection. On smaller scales (distances on the order of one mile) the precision should be pretty good, like less than 1% error. You'd introduce greater errors than that just in the process of taking magnetic compass readings. Really, why would you need better precision than that? If you can't get close to a feature for whatever reason, that probably means there are no other mapped or mappable features very close to it. If a dot on the map is off by 50 feet, but there's no other feature on the map for a mile around, is there really a problem? You could use professional surveying equipment and complicated algorithms to bet better precision, but in the context of OpenStreetMap, I don't think it's worth the trouble. Oh, and I really don't mean to discourage anyone. If someone actually goes to the trouble, I'll be impressed. -- David "Smith" a.k.a. Vid the Kid a.k.a. Bír'd'in Does this font make me look fat? _______________________________________________ newbies mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/newbies
