How to calculate the bounding box for a given lat/lng location?

Question

I have given a location defined by latitude and longitude. Now i want to calculate a bounding box within e.g. 10 kilometers of that point.

The bounding box should be defined as latmin, lngmin and latmax, lngmax.

I need this stuff in order to use the panoramio API.

Does someone know the formula of how to get thos points?

Edit: Guys i am looking for a formula/function which takes lat & lng as input and returns a bounding box as latmin & lngmin and latmax & latmin. Mysql, php, c#, javascript is fine but also pseudocode should be okay.

Edit: I am not looking for a solution which shows me the distance of 2 points

Answer 1

I suggest to approximate locally the Earth surface as a sphere with radius given by the WGS84 ellipsoid at the given latitude. I suspect that the exact computation of latMin and latMax would require elliptic functions and would not yield an appreciable increase in accuracy (WGS84 is itself an approximation).

My implementation follows (It's written in Python; I have not tested it):

# degrees to radians
def deg2rad(degrees):
    return math.pi*degrees/180.0
# radians to degrees
def rad2deg(radians):
    return 180.0*radians/math.pi

# Semi-axes of WGS-84 geoidal reference
WGS84_a = 6378137.0  # Major semiaxis [m]
WGS84_b = 6356752.3  # Minor semiaxis [m]

# Earth radius at a given latitude, according to the WGS-84 ellipsoid [m]
def WGS84EarthRadius(lat):
    # http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_radius
    An = WGS84_a*WGS84_a * math.cos(lat)
    Bn = WGS84_b*WGS84_b * math.sin(lat)
    Ad = WGS84_a * math.cos(lat)
    Bd = WGS84_b * math.sin(lat)
    return math.sqrt( (An*An + Bn*Bn)/(Ad*Ad + Bd*Bd) )

# Bounding box surrounding the point at given coordinates,
# assuming local approximation of Earth surface as a sphere
# of radius given by WGS84
def boundingBox(latitudeInDegrees, longitudeInDegrees, halfSideInKm):
    lat = deg2rad(latitudeInDegrees)
    lon = deg2rad(longitudeInDegrees)
    halfSide = 1000*halfSideInKm

    # Radius of Earth at given latitude
    radius = WGS84EarthRadius(lat)
    # Radius of the parallel at given latitude
    pradius = radius*math.cos(lat)

    latMin = lat - halfSide/radius
    latMax = lat + halfSide/radius
    lonMin = lon - halfSide/pradius
    lonMax = lon + halfSide/pradius

    return (rad2deg(latMin), rad2deg(lonMin), rad2deg(latMax), rad2deg(lonMax))

EDIT: The following code converts (degrees, primes, seconds) to degrees + fractions of a degree, and vice versa (not tested):

def dps2deg(degrees, primes, seconds):
    return degrees + primes/60.0 + seconds/3600.0

def deg2dps(degrees):
    intdeg = math.floor(degrees)
    primes = (degrees - intdeg)*60.0
    intpri = math.floor(primes)
    seconds = (primes - intpri)*60.0
    intsec = round(seconds)
    return (int(intdeg), int(intpri), int(intsec))

Answer 2

I wrote an article about finding the bounding coordinates:

http://JanMatuschek.de/LatitudeLongitudeBoundingCoordinates

The article explains the formulae and also provides a Java implementation. (It also shows why Federico's formula for the min/max longitude is inaccurate.)

Answer 3

Here I have converted Federico A. Ramponi's answer to C# for anybody interested:

public class MapPoint
{
    public double Longitude { get; set; } // In Degrees
    public double Latitude { get; set; } // In Degrees
}

public class BoundingBox
{
    public MapPoint MinPoint { get; set; }
    public MapPoint MaxPoint { get; set; }
}        

// Semi-axes of WGS-84 geoidal reference
private const double WGS84_a = 6378137.0; // Major semiaxis [m]
private const double WGS84_b = 6356752.3; // Minor semiaxis [m]

// 'halfSideInKm' is the half length of the bounding box you want in kilometers.
public static BoundingBox GetBoundingBox(MapPoint point, double halfSideInKm)
{            
    // Bounding box surrounding the point at given coordinates,
    // assuming local approximation of Earth surface as a sphere
    // of radius given by WGS84
    var lat = Deg2rad(point.Latitude);
    var lon = Deg2rad(point.Longitude);
    var halfSide = 1000 * halfSideInKm;

    // Radius of Earth at given latitude
    var radius = WGS84EarthRadius(lat);
    // Radius of the parallel at given latitude
    var pradius = radius * Math.Cos(lat);

    var latMin = lat - halfSide / radius;
    var latMax = lat + halfSide / radius;
    var lonMin = lon - halfSide / pradius;
    var lonMax = lon + halfSide / pradius;

    return new BoundingBox { 
        MinPoint = new MapPoint { Latitude = Rad2deg(latMin), Longitude = Rad2deg(lonMin) },
        MaxPoint = new MapPoint { Latitude = Rad2deg(latMax), Longitude = Rad2deg(lonMax) }
    };            
}

// degrees to radians
private static double Deg2rad(double degrees)
{
    return Math.PI * degrees / 180.0;
}

// radians to degrees
private static double Rad2deg(double radians)
{
    return 180.0 * radians / Math.PI;
}

// Earth radius at a given latitude, according to the WGS-84 ellipsoid [m]
private static double WGS84EarthRadius(double lat)
{
    // http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_radius
    var An = WGS84_a * WGS84_a * Math.Cos(lat);
    var Bn = WGS84_b * WGS84_b * Math.Sin(lat);
    var Ad = WGS84_a * Math.Cos(lat);
    var Bd = WGS84_b * Math.Sin(lat);
    return Math.Sqrt((An*An + Bn*Bn) / (Ad*Ad + Bd*Bd));
}