drawing a line in google maps perpendicular to two points

Question

I have two coordinates for which I would like to draw a perpendicular line of equal length. Is there either a simple google maps offset for this or a clean javascript approach by which I might accomplish this? What would that be?

Here is what I have thus far. As you can see, I plot the two points as markers and then attempt to draw a line between them, except I need to get that line perpendicular to the line between the two coordinates.

var locations = [
    ['', position.coords.latitude, position.coords.longitude, 1],
    ['', llat, llng, 2]
];

  var marker, i;

  for ( var i = 0; i < locations.length; i++ )
  {
      marker = new google.maps.Marker({
        position: new google.maps.LatLng(locations[i][1], locations[i][2]),
        map: map
      });
  }

    var borderPlanCoordinates = [
        new google.maps.LatLng(llat, position.coords.longitude),
        new google.maps.LatLng(position.coords.latitude,llng)
    ];

    var borderPath = new google.maps.Polyline({
      path: borderPlanCoordinates,
      strokeColor: "#FF0000",
      strokeOpacity: 1.0,
      strokeWeight: 10,
      map: map
    });

   borderPath.setMap(map);

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 30 '11 at 06:11

So you have two points with coordinates (x1,y1) and (x2, y2) and you want to draw a line segment whose length is the distance between them, which is the perpendicular bisector of the segment connecting them, and which is bisected by said segment?

Probably the simplest way is to set cx = (x1 + x2)/2, cy = (y1+y2)/2), dx = (x2-x1)/2, dy = (y2-y1)/2 and then draw a line from (cx-dy, cy+dx) to (cx+dy, cy-dx).

This works because (cx, cy) is the midpoint of the segment you want, and then you're just taking the vector from that midpoint to (x2,y2) and rotating it by plus and minus 90 degrees to find the endpoints of the segment you want to draw.

Pr Shadoko · Answer 2 · 2015-03-05T15:10:33.373

I tried this solution, the middle of the segment is ok BUT it doesn't look perpendicular on google maps, I suspect because of spherical projection (not orthonormal).

Here is a solution that works :

spherical = google.maps.geometry.spherical;
var F = new google.maps.LatLng(latF, longF); 
var T = new google.maps.LatLng(latT, longT); 
// M is the middle of [FT]
var latM = (latF + latT)/2;
var longM = (longF + longT)/2;
var M =  new google.maps.LatLng(latM, longM);
// Get direction of the segment
var heading = spherical.computeHeading(F, T);
var dist = 200; // distance in meters
// Place point A that is oriented at 90° in a distance of dist from M
var A = spherical.computeOffset(M, dist, heading+90);
var perpendicularCoordinates = [M, A ];
var perpendicular = new google.maps.Polyline({
    path: perpendicularCoordinates,
    geodesic: true,
    strokeColor: '#FF0000',
    strokeOpacity: 1.0,
    strokeWeight: 2,
    map: map
  });

Here is the related fiddle : http://jsfiddle.net/8m7vm650/15/

Please note that you need to use an optional google maps library called geometry which is done by adding libraries=geometry to query string when loading maps : http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/js?libraries=geometry&sensor=false

drawing a line in google maps perpendicular to two points

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