Compute the distance of a point to a great-circle path (also referred to as the cross track distance or cross track error). The great circle is defined by p1 and p2, while p3 is the point away from the path.
Usage
dist2gc(p1, p2, p3, r=6378137, sign=FALSE)
Arguments
p1
Start of great circle path. 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
End of great circle path. As above
p3
Point away from the great cricle path. As for p2
r
radius of the earth; default = 6378137
sign
logical. If TRUE, a negative sign is used to indicated that the points are to the left of the great circle
Value
A distance in units of r (default is meters)
If sign=TRUE, the sign indicates which side of the path p3 is on. Positive means right of the course from p1 to p2, negative means left.