Screen Visualization for TerraLine · posted by vaibhav bhawsar Apr 16, 14:32

I created this to help me debug the two navigation techniques that I am using to get the set of countries that lay in a given direction. One is navigation by the rhumb line or compass heading and the other is using the great circle path as the trajectory.

When using rhumb line method the navigator sets a certain heading say 30 degrees and continues to head in that direction.

Whereas a great circle provides the shortest possible path between any two points but requires the navigator to constantly correct the heading. This makes navigating by great circle a lot more complicated than rhumb line method. Great circles are

Wikipedia entries on the two methods-

Rhumb Line
In navigation, a rhumb line (or loxodrome) is a line crossing all meridians at the same angle, i.e. a path of constant bearing. It is obviously easier to manually steer than the constantly changing heading of the shorter great circle route.

Great Circles
The great circle on the spherical surface is the path with the smallest curvature, and, hence, an arc (an orthodrome) is the shortest path between two points on the surface. The distance between any two points on a sphere is known as the great-circle distance. The great-circle route is the shortest path between two points on a sphere; however, if one were to travel along such a route, it would be difficult to manually steer as the heading would constantly be changing (except in the case of due north, south, or along the equator).