Compute the coordinates of the end-point of a displacement along a geodesic.
Inputs:
- lat, lon: coordinates (latitude, longitude) of the starting point.
- range: displacement along a specified geodesic (angle or length).
- azi: direction of the displacement relative (clockwise) to the North.
All these inputs can be scalars, vectors or 2D/ND arrays. If any input is
a vector or 2D or ND array, all other inputs MUST be either scalars, OR
vectors or arrays of the exact same size, OR scalars. Scalars will be
automatically expanded to the size of the input vectors/arrays.
The following optional arguments can be specified in any desired order:
- dim: (char, case-insensitive, can be shortened to just the first
letter) unit of range: either "length" or "angle" (default). The
"length" unit is supposed to be "meters" but in case of a length input,
one can also specify any length unit accepted by validateLengthUnit.
- angleUnit: angle unit for all input angles: "degrees" (default) or
"radians" (case-insensitive, can be shortened to just the first letter).
- ellipsoid: reference ellipsoid. Can be either an ellipsoid name,
an ellipsoid code (entered as numerical or character string), of a vector
of SemimajorAxis and Flattening.
Output arguments:
- lato, lono: computed latitude and longitude after displacement.
For displacement inputs speciied as lengths, geodeticfwd needs to iterate
to get a satisfactory solution. If the maximum number number of iterations
is exceeded a suitable warning is emitted and the related output(s) is/are
set to NaN.
- azo: computed azimuth at (lato, lono).
geodeticfwd is based on vincentyDirect.m by Alfredo Foltran, in turn based
on Vicenty.T (1975) "Direct and inverse solutions of geodesics on the
ellipsoid with application of nested equations".
See also: geodeticarc, meridianfwd, reckon, referenceEllipsoid,
validateLengthUnit, vincentyDirect.