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Finding a midpoint?


TheRudderpost

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Ah well I need to know how to do it on the ground .. in a 40 acre field

Google maps isnt going to help much there

 

Still hoping there is a way

You can't just go get the coordinates of the endpoints, come home, and do the calculation?

If you're looking for a way to calculate this on your GPS, you're not going to find it. This isn't a function that many people would ever need, so the GPS manufacturers aren't going to waste time and resources programming their GPS devices to do it. As nggrfan said, you might be able to just walk to the spot based on your distance from the endpoints, but it'll be pretty approximate.

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If I were planning to determine the midpoint in the field, then I would (1) mark the first waypoint, (2) walk to the second waypoint, (3) determine the distance and bearing from the first waypoint, and (4) walk back towards the first waypoint until I found the spot that was at half the distance from the first waypoint, but at the same bearing.

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How to proceed depends on what you REALLY are trying to accomplish. :unsure:

 

I don't know if your particular unit can do it 'my way', but (using my old Magellan Meridian Platinum) I could either either mark two points (or manually enter two points) and walk to the point halfway between. I could also project a line and endpoint from one single given (manually entered or marked on-site) point and walk to the midpoint.

 

Since you say this is in a field, I'm assuming flat and level ground, so walking straight should be relatively easy.

 

Although I've never needed to use the feature, I seem to recall the unit can tell me the distance between two given points, and I should be easily able to calculate the midpoint distance from that. (Especially if I set the distance units to meters ;) )

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It's really simple. Convert each of the endpoint coordinates to decimal degrees. Your GPS will do this for you. Now add each of the latitudes together and divide the result by 2. In other words, compute the average. Then do the same with the longitude. This will result in the midpoint.

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emot-doh.gif

Duh, I just realized something we're all missing. If you want the midpoint between two sets of coordinates, just average them! With a basic calculator, you can easily do this in the field.

 

It's really simple. Convert each of the endpoint coordinates to decimal degrees. Your GPS will do this for you. Now add each of the latitudes together and divide the result by 2. In other words, compute the average. Then do the same with the longitude. This will result in the midpoint.

 

You guys are NO FUN! :P

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Plus, the OP didn't say he already had the co-ordinates for the points.

 

Double :P

Well, I figured that he would be getting the coordinates for the endpoints before attempting to determine the midpoint. After all, it's kinda hard to find the midpoint of a line if you don't know where the line is.

:P :P :P

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Well, I figured that he would be getting the coordinates for the endpoints before attempting to determine the midpoint. After all, it's kinda hard to find the midpoint of a line if you don't know where the line is.

:P :P :P

 

Well, we don't yet know if they are trying to solve a puzzle, create one, or do something entirely unrelated to geocaching.

 

Quad :P

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