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Old July 17th, 2009, 07:02 AM
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Question Triangulation on the sphere!!

Hi, I am trying to perform some triangulation on a sphere. I have 3 distinct points of which I know the lat/long positions. From my position I can measure the angles between between the 3 points as I see them. Using the cosine rule I came up with three equations to find the three unknown distances from the points (so I can triangulate).

Known values are d,e,f,alpha,beta. Can anyone help me unwrap these three equations to find the three unknowns a,b and c? Have tried and ended up with a mess on the page

cos f = cos a cos c + sin a sin c cos(alpha + beta)

cos d = cos a cos b + sin a sin b cos alpha

cos e = cos b cos c + sin b sin c cos beta

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cosine rule, geometry, sphere, spherical

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