How to get the compass direction from azimuth on Android

Question

I have to display which direction the user is pointing the Android device.

I am using Sensor.TYPE_ACCELEROMETER, Sensor.TYPE_MAGNETIC_FIELD to get the azimuth, pitch, roll. But I am to able to figure out how to get directions (North, south, east , west,...) from this.

Please help

Thanks

Answer 1

To point the north you can calculate a rotation in degrees :

float rotation = -azimut * 360 / (2 * 3.14159f);

You can see the following compass example which make uses of accelerometer and magnetic field : http://www.codingforandroid.com/2011/01/using-orientation-sensors-simple.html

Azimuth on Wikipédia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azimuth

Answer 2

You have several examples of implementing a compass on Android.