ee.Geometry.geodesic

  • The geodesic() method determines whether edges of a geometry are rendered as straight lines or curved to follow the Earth's curvature.

  • By default, edges are straight; setting geodesic() to true makes them curved, representing the shortest path on the Earth's surface.

  • This method applies to Geometry objects and returns a boolean value indicating the geodesic setting.

  • Code examples demonstrate the usage of geodesic() in both JavaScript and Python within the Earth Engine environment.

 If false, edges are straight in the projection. If true, edges are curved to follow the shortest path on the surface of the Earth.

UsageReturns
Geometry.geodesic()Boolean
ArgumentTypeDetails
this: geometryGeometry

Examples

Code Editor (JavaScript)

// Define a Geometry object.
var geometry = ee.Geometry({
  'type': 'Polygon',
  'coordinates':
    [[[-122.081, 37.417],
      [-122.086, 37.421],
      [-122.084, 37.418],
      [-122.089, 37.416]]]
});

// Apply the geodesic method to the Geometry object.
var geometryGeodesic = geometry.geodesic();

// Print the result to the console.
print('geometry.geodesic(...) =', geometryGeodesic);

// Display relevant geometries on the map.
Map.setCenter(-122.085, 37.422, 15);
Map.addLayer(geometry,
             {'color': 'black'},
             'Geometry [black]: geometry');

Python setup

See the Python Environment page for information on the Python API and using geemap for interactive development.

import ee
import geemap.core as geemap

Colab (Python)

# Define a Geometry object.
geometry = ee.Geometry({
    'type': 'Polygon',
    'coordinates': [[
        [-122.081, 37.417],
        [-122.086, 37.421],
        [-122.084, 37.418],
        [-122.089, 37.416],
    ]],
})

# Apply the geodesic method to the Geometry object.
geometry_geodesic = geometry.geodesic()

# Print the result.
display('geometry.geodesic(...) =', geometry_geodesic)

# Display relevant geometries on the map.
m = geemap.Map()
m.set_center(-122.085, 37.422, 15)
m.add_layer(geometry, {'color': 'black'}, 'Geometry [black]: geometry')
m