[GIS] Measuring distance between points in QGIS

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I have a layer with about 500 single points. Now I want to measure the distance between each of these points and one specified observation point.

I need the distance to show how far away from the observation point each of these points was located to build a table for detection probability.

I already tried lots of Plugins (Hub Distance, NNJoin, …), but simply can't find a proper way to calculate what I need.

Best Answer

Another option from mentioned by @Spacedman is the following:

Connect target points with the source point (observation one)
Measure distances for created lines

This option could also help you to create some nice visualizations.

Prepare your data by creating unique fields in both (target and source) layers.
Install plugin 'Connect Points'. It is an experimented one, so make sure you ticked 'Show also experimental plugins' on your Plugins menu. Plugin works with WGS 84 CRS only
Go to Plugins > Connect Points > Settings and set appropriate options.
Run the Plugin. Here is the following result:
Resave it with appropriate metrical CRS and count length of these lines by updating the length column with the function $length.
Results are the same as by using 'Distance matrix' plus you've got a vector layer.

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Another approach by a Virtual Layer.

Given you are working on avian movement, I assumed the data is on geographical coordinates (LatLong).

1) Created a dummy data.(The layer name is PointLayer1)

2) Layer | Add Layer | Add Virtual Layer

Import the PointLayer1
Write query to measure distance between each stop:

Query:

SELECT a.loc AS A, b.loc AS B, ROUND(st_distance(a.geometry, b.geometry, 4326) / 1000, 3) AS EACH_km
FROM PointLayer1 a
INNER JOIN PointLayer1 b ON a.loc = b.loc -1
ORDER BY a.loc

Which gives a virtual layer (please open the attribute table) with each flight distance (kilometers) between A and B.

As you need the total flight length, modify the syntax slightly to:

SELECT total(EACH_km) AS TOTAL_km
FROM 
(SELECT a.loc AS A, b.loc AS B, ROUND(st_distance(a.geometry, b.geometry, 4326) / 1000, 3) AS EACH_km
FROM PointLayer1 a  INNER JOIN PointLayer1 b
ON a.loc = b.loc -1
ORDER BY a.loc)

It will give you something like:

When you use the syntax, please replace the PointLayer1 by your layer, and loc by your field to identify the order of stop points.

3) Run scenarios

You can modify order of points by changing loc field. When you change the loc then the virtual layer will update the calculation.

Best Answer

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