Could it be returning a distance in decimal miles? I'm out by around 1.6 - 1.6km = 1mile?
On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 5:43 PM, Stuart Guthrie <stuartguth...@gmail.com>wrote: > OK, I'm a newbie to postgis but an old-timer with open source in general. > > Sorry to bother everyone but this problem is driving me a little nuts. > > I've bought the 'postgis in action' book and now I think I still know > nothing. > > I'm trying to store long lats and do queries on them to establish distance > and use that for reporting. > > I'm using this to update the table 'address' > > update address set geog=ST_GeographyFromText('POINT('||lon||' '||lat||')') > where id=?; > > the address table field 'geog' has this definition: > > geog geography(Point,4326) > > When I compare two addresses that I know are around 1800m apart I get this: > > select a.addressline2, a.suburb, ST_Y(a.geog::geometry), > ST_X(a.geog::geometry), b.addressline2,b.suburb,ST_Y(b.geog::geometry), > ST_X(b.geog::geometry), ST_distance(a.geog,b.geog ) from address a join > address b on b.id=41491 where a.id=1238 ; > > addressline2 | suburb | st_y | st_x | addressline2 | > suburb | st_y | st_x | st_distance > > ---------------+--------+-------------+-------------+----------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+------------------ > 140 Sussex St | Sydney | -33.8692429 | 151.2036312 | 1 Riley Street | > Surry Hills | -33.8726426 | 151.2157115 | 1179.61881540556 > > Postgis says they are 1179.61m apart. > > When I use google maps/yahoo maps/bing maps scale with a good-old > fashioned ruler, I get closer to 1800-2000m. > > This site says 2230m: > > http://www.daftlogic.com/projects-google-maps-distance-calculator.htm > > Is there somewhere I'm missing a magic incantation? I can't find it. Tried > geometry instead of geography no solution for me there. > > I'm using Postgis 1.5.3-1 ubuntu amd64 11.10 > > Thanks if you can help. > > -- > Best regards > > Stuart Guthrie > > > > -- Best regards Stuart Guthrie (m) 0403 470 123
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