Creating a "Compass" Chart

[ejsdon]

I am given direction in this format:

N
NNE
NE
SNE
E
NSE
SE
SSE
S
SSW
SW
SNW
W
SNW
NW
NNW

What I would like to do is display these as a single arrow within a compass dial. So I would most likely have to convert them to a number first. Once I have converted these I am then going to embed them on top of another chart - though I think I can do that bit myself!
See attached sheet, Thank You in advance for any help.

[MrShorty]

Yes, you would need to convert them to a number. In your spreadsheet, you "convert" the text bearings to angles (in degrees), but Excel can't really work with "polar coordinates" (r, t) where r is the radius/distance from center and t is the angle. So you need to convert them from polar coordinates to rectangular coordinates (something you would have learned in algebra/trig). If you put something like "convert polar and rectangular coordinates" into your favorite internet search engine, you should get several tutorials.

I put this spreadsheet together to illustrate trig ratios on the unit circle. Post #3 includes an example using the "compass bearing" convention where 0 is North (along the y axis) and angle increase in a CW direction. You should be able to see how I plotted an arrow on the chart for a specified angle by converting to rectangular coordinates and plotting those on the chart (along with a bunch of other stuff to make the circles and angles look nice). https://www.excelforum.com/tips-and-...ml#post4309792

One thing to remember -- Excel, like all other programming languages -- performs trig calculations in radians. If you want your angles in degrees, you will need to convert between degrees and radians so the calculations will be correct (see the DEGREES() and RADIANS() functions).

[ejsdon]

I have attempted this without success. Anyone else out there got something I could follow more easily?

[Andy Pope]

You don't provide much detail about what you tried and what you could not do.

As MrShorty explained you need to convert the angle/distance information into xy point using some trig formula.

This simple example uses 2 points for each of the 16 positions in order to draw a line between center and outer edge. The gaps in the data allow for gaps in the line.