Fastest Way to Find Distance Between Two Lat/Long Points

Question

I currently have just under a million locations in a mysql database all with longitude and latitude information.

I am trying to find the distance between one point and many other points via a query. It's not as fast as I want it to be especially with 100+ hits a second.

Is there a faster query or possibly a faster system other than mysql for this? I'm using this query:

SELECT 
  name, 
   ( 3959 * acos( cos( radians(42.290763) ) * cos( radians( locations.lat ) ) 
   * cos( radians(locations.lng) - radians(-71.35368)) + sin(radians(42.290763)) 
   * sin( radians(locations.lat)))) AS distance 
FROM locations 
WHERE active = 1 
HAVING distance < 10 
ORDER BY distance;

Note: The provided distance is in Miles. If you need Kilometers, use 6371 instead of 3959.

Answer 1

• Create your points using Point values of Geometry data types in MyISAM table. As of Mysql 5.7.5, InnoDB tables now also support SPATIAL indices.

• Create a SPATIAL index on these points

• Use MBRContains() to find the values:

  SELECT  *
  FROM    table
  WHERE   MBRContains(LineFromText(CONCAT(
          '('
          , @lon + 10 / ( 111.1 / cos(RADIANS(@lon)))
          , ' '
          , @lat + 10 / 111.1
          , ','
          , @lon - 10 / ( 111.1 / cos(RADIANS(@lat)))
          , ' '
          , @lat - 10 / 111.1 
          , ')' )
          ,mypoint)
  

, or, in MySQL 5.1 and above:

    SELECT  *
    FROM    table
    WHERE   MBRContains
                    (
                    LineString
                            (
                            Point (
                                    @lon + 10 / ( 111.1 / COS(RADIANS(@lat))),
                                    @lat + 10 / 111.1
                                  ),
                            Point (
                                    @lon - 10 / ( 111.1 / COS(RADIANS(@lat))),
                                    @lat - 10 / 111.1
                                  ) 
                            ),
                    mypoint
                    )

This will select all points approximately within the box (@lat +/- 10 km, @lon +/- 10km).

This actually is not a box, but a spherical rectangle: latitude and longitude bound segment of the sphere. This may differ from a plain rectangle on the Franz Joseph Land, but quite close to it on most inhabited places.

• Apply additional filtering to select everything inside the circle (not the square)

• Possibly apply additional fine filtering to account for the big circle distance (for large distances)