Vincenty's formulae are two related iterative methods used in geodesy to calculate the distance between two points on the surface of a spheroid, developed by Thaddeus Vincenty (1975a) They are based on the assumption that the figure of the Earth is an oblate spheroid, and hence are more accurate than methods such as great-circle distance which assume a spherical Earth.
The first (direct) method computes the location of a point which is a given distance and azimuth (direction) from another point. The second (inverse) method computes the geographical distance and azimuth between two given points. They have been widely used in geodesy because they are accurate to within 0.5 mm (0.020″) on the Earth ellipsoid.
Read more about Vincenty's Formulae: Background, Notation, Inverse Problem, Direct Problem, Vincenty's Modification, Nearly Antipodal Points, See Also
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