| Comments

as i continue to build on top of my virtual earth example that uses proximity searching, i found myself wanting to add more visualization to the mix.  i wanted the radius being searched to actually show a radius ring for the area...so the user could see the proximity being searched where the results are plotted.

so, i started digging -- how do you draw a circle using the polyline api?  hmmm...rounded corners with straight lines...seemed like a challenge.

well after a prod to some people i was pointed to a solution already doing this!

and thus the had the answer.  basically it is a javascript function like this:

   1:  function addCircle(polyname, latin, lonin, radius, vecolor, linewidth) 
   2:  { 
   3:      var locs = new Array(); 
   4:      var lat1 = latin * Math.PI/180.0; 
   5:      var lon1 = lonin * Math.PI/180.0; 
   6:      var d = radius/3956; 
   7:      var x; 
   8:      for (x = 0; x <= 360; x++) 
   9:      { 
  10:          var tc = (x / 90)* Math.PI / 2; 
  11:          var lat = Math.asin(Math.sin(lat1)*Math.cos(d)+Math.cos(lat1)*Math.sin(d)*Math.cos(tc)); 
  12:          lat = 180.0 * lat / Math.PI; 
  13:          var lon; 
  14:           if (Math.cos(lat1)==0) 
  15:          { 
  16:              lon=lonin; // endpoint a pole 
  17:          } 
  18:          else 
  19:          { 
  20:              lon = ((lon1 - Math.asin(Math.sin(tc) * Math.sin(d)/Math.cos(lat1)) + Math.PI) % (2 * Math.PI)) - Math.PI; 
  21:          } 
  22:          lon = 180.0 * lon / Math.PI; 
  23:          var loc = new VELatLong(lat,lon); 
  24:          locs.push(loc); 
  25:      } 
  26:      var poly = new VEPolyline(polyname, locs, vecolor , linewidth); 
  27:      return poly; 
  28:  }


(note: the 3956 indicates this is miles...if you need km, then you'd have to adjust the earth radius setting to be km instead)

now that i add that to my code, i simply call:

   1:  map.AddPolyline(addCircle("SearchRadius", center.Latitude, center.Longitude, $get("MilesRadius").value, new VEColor(255,0,0,1), 4));


and have a radius drawn around my resulted plot points.

sshot-4

the beauty is that as with everything, this applies to the 3d views as well:

sshot-5

very cool -- hope this helps others as well.

Please enjoy some of these other recent posts...

Comments