Table of Contents

• phpgeo - A Simple Geo Library for PHP
  • Installation
  • Usage
    • Calculations
      • Distance between two coordinates (Vincenty's Formula)
      • Distance between two coordinates (Haversine Formula)
      • Length of a polyline (e.g. "GPS track")
      • Simplifying a polyline
    • Formatted output of coordinates
      • Decimal Degrees
      • Degrees/Minutes/Seconds (DMS)
      • GeoJSON
    • Formatted output of polylines
      • GeoJSON
  • Credits

phpgeo - A Simple Geo Library for PHP

phpgeo provides abstractions to geographical coordinates (including support for different ellipsoids) and allows you to calculate geographical distances between coordinates with high precision.

Installation

Using Composer, just add the following configuration to your composer.json:

{
    "require": {
        "mjaschen/phpgeo": "~0.2.1"
    }
}

Usage

Calculations

Distance between two coordinates (Vincenty's Formula)

Use the calculator object directly:

<?php

use Location\Coordinate;
use Location\Distance\Vincenty;

$coordinate1 = new Coordinate(19.820664, -155.468066); // Mauna Kea Summit
$coordinate2 = new Coordinate(20.709722, -156.253333); // Haleakala Summit

$calculator = new Vincenty();

echo $calculator->getDistance($coordinate1, $coordinate2); // returns 128130.850 (meters; ≈128 kilometers)

or call the getDistance() method of a Coordinate object by injecting a calculator object:

<?php

use Location\Coordinate;
use Location\Distance\Vincenty;

$coordinate1 = new Coordinate(19.820664, -155.468066); // Mauna Kea Summit
$coordinate2 = new Coordinate(20.709722, -156.253333); // Haleakala Summit

echo $coordinate1->getDistance($coordinate2, new Vincenty()); // returns 128130.850 (meters; ≈128 kilometers)

Distance between two coordinates (Haversine Formula)

There exist different methods for calculating the distance between two points. The Haversine formula is much faster the Vincenty's method but less precise:

<?php

use Location\Coordinate;
use Location\Distance\Haversine;

$coordinate1 = new Coordinate(19.820664, -155.468066); // Mauna Kea Summit
$coordinate2 = new Coordinate(20.709722, -156.253333); // Haleakala Summit

echo $coordinate1->getDistance($coordinate2, new Haversine()); // returns 128384.515 (meters; ≈128 kilometers)

Length of a polyline (e.g. "GPS track")

phpgeo has a polyline implementation which can be used to calculate the length of a GPS track or a route. A polyline consists of at least two points. Points are instances of the Coordinate class.

<?php

use Location\Coordinate;
use Location\Polyline;
use Location\Distance\Vincenty;

$track = new Polyline();
$track->addPoint(new Coordinate(52.5, 13.5));
$track->addPoint(new Coordinate(54.5, 12.5));

echo $track->getLength(new Vincenty());

Simplifying a polyline

Polylines can be simplified to save storage space. Simplification is done with the Ramer–Douglas–Peucker algorithm (AKA Douglas-Peucker algorithm).

<?php

use Location\Coordinate;
use Location\Polyline;
use Location\Distance\Vincenty;

$polyline = new Polyline();
$polyline->addPoint(new Coordinate(10.0, 10.0));
$polyline->addPoint(new Coordinate(20.0, 20.0));
$polyline->addPoint(new Coordinate(30.0, 10.0));

$processor = new Simplify($polyline);

// remove all points which perpendicular distance is less
// than 1500 km from the surrounding points.
$simplified = $processor->simplify(1500000);

// simplified is the polyline without the second point (which
// perpendicular distance is ~1046 km and therefore below
// the simplification threshold)

Formatted output of coordinates

You can format a coordinate in different styles.

Decimal Degrees

<?php

use Location\Coordinate;
use Location\Formatter\Coordinate\DecimalDegrees;

$coordinate = new Coordinate(19.820664, -155.468066); // Mauna Kea Summit

echo $coordinate->format(new DecimalDegrees());

Degrees/Minutes/Seconds (DMS)

<?php

use Location\Coordinate;
use Location\Formatter\Coordinate\DMS;

$coordinate = new Coordinate(18.911306, -155.678268); // South Point, HI, USA

$formatter = new DMS();

echo $coordinate->format($formatter); // 18° 54′ 41″ -155° 40′ 42″

$formatter->setSeparator(", ")
    ->useCardinalLetters(true)
    ->setUnits(DMS::UNITS_ASCII);

echo $coordinate->format($formatter); // 18° 54' 41" N, 155° 40' 42" W

GeoJSON

<?php

use Location\Coordinate;
use Location\Formatter\Coordinate\GeoJSON;

$coordinate = new Coordinate(18.911306, -155.678268); // South Point, HI, USA

echo $coordinate->format(new GeoJSON()); // { "type" : "point" , "coordinates" : [ -155.678268, 18.911306 ] }

Formatted output of polylines

You can format a polyline in different styles.

GeoJSON

<?php

use Location\Coordinate;
use Location\Polyline;
use Location\Formatter\Polyline\GeoJSON;

$polyline = new Polyline;
$polyline->addPoint(new Coordinate(52.5, 13.5));
$polyline->addPoint(new Coordinate(62.5, 14.5));

$formatter = new GeoJSON;

echo $formatter->format($polyline); // { "type" : "LineString" , "coordinates" : [ [ 13.5, 52.5 ], [ 14.5, 62.5 ] ] }

Credits

• Marcus T. Jaschen [email protected]
• Chris Veness - JavaScript implementation of the Vincenty formula for distance calculation
• Ersts,P.J., Horning, N., and M. Polin[Internet] Perpendicular Distance Calculator(version 1.2.2) Documentation. American Museum of Natural History, Center for Biodiversity and Conservation. Available from http://biodiversityinformatics.amnh.org/open_source/pdc. Accessed on 2013-07-07.
• Richard Barnes Polyline GeoJSON Formatter