Set MKMapView region to center on two annotations

Question

I'm looking for some help with finishing some code on setting the region on a MKMapView based on the current location annotation and an annotation I have set.

I want to calculate the distance between the two and set the center between the two and then zoom out so both are in view. It appears to work fine in Simulator for me, but unfortunately the userLocation.coordinate is fixed to Apple HQ. When I test on a device, I am seeing weird behaviour. Often it'll zoom out and set a proper region if the two annotations are somewhat horizontally on the same latitude, but if the vertical distance is greater it's not zooming out properly.

I have used code found here, and edited a little bit to fit my needs:

CLLocationCoordinate2D southWest = mapView.userLocation.coordinate;
CLLocationCoordinate2D northEast = southWest;

southWest.latitude = MIN(southWest.latitude, annotation.coordinate.latitude);
southWest.longitude = MIN(southWest.longitude, annotation.coordinate.longitude);

northEast.latitude = MAX(northEast.latitude, annotation.coordinate.latitude);
northEast.longitude = MAX(northEast.longitude, annotation.coordinate.longitude);

CLLocation *locSouthWest = [[CLLocation alloc] initWithLatitude:southWest.latitude longitude:southWest.longitude];
CLLocation *locNorthEast = [[CLLocation alloc] initWithLatitude:northEast.latitude longitude:northEast.longitude];

// This is a diag distance (if you wanted tighter you could do NE-NW or NE-SE)
CLLocationDistance meters = [locSouthWest distanceFromLocation:locNorthEast];

MKCoordinateRegion region;
region.center.latitude = (southWest.latitude + northEast.latitude) / 2.0;
region.center.longitude = (southWest.longitude + northEast.longitude) / 2.0;
region.span.latitudeDelta = meters / 111319.5;
region.span.longitudeDelta = 0.0;

MKCoordinateRegion savedRegion = [mapView regionThatFits:region];
[mapView setRegion:savedRegion animated:YES];

[locSouthWest release];
[locNorthEast release];

One thing that confused me is that he says northEast = southWest...

Thanks in advance to anyone who's got some help and input :)

Answer 1

this blog posting might provide you with the insight to need

http://codisllc.com/blog/zoom-mkmapview-to-fit-annotations/

-(void)zoomToFitMapAnnotations:(MKMapView*)mapView
{
    if([mapView.annotations count] == 0)
        return;

    CLLocationCoordinate2D topLeftCoord;
    topLeftCoord.latitude = -90;
    topLeftCoord.longitude = 180;

    CLLocationCoordinate2D bottomRightCoord;
    bottomRightCoord.latitude = 90;
    bottomRightCoord.longitude = -180;

    for(MapAnnotation* annotation in mapView.annotations)
    {
        topLeftCoord.longitude = fmin(topLeftCoord.longitude, annotation.coordinate.longitude);
        topLeftCoord.latitude = fmax(topLeftCoord.latitude, annotation.coordinate.latitude);

        bottomRightCoord.longitude = fmax(bottomRightCoord.longitude, annotation.coordinate.longitude);
        bottomRightCoord.latitude = fmin(bottomRightCoord.latitude, annotation.coordinate.latitude);
    }

    MKCoordinateRegion region;
    region.center.latitude = topLeftCoord.latitude - (topLeftCoord.latitude - bottomRightCoord.latitude) * 0.5;
    region.center.longitude = topLeftCoord.longitude + (bottomRightCoord.longitude - topLeftCoord.longitude) * 0.5;
    region.span.latitudeDelta = fabs(topLeftCoord.latitude - bottomRightCoord.latitude) * 1.1; // Add a little extra space on the sides
    region.span.longitudeDelta = fabs(bottomRightCoord.longitude - topLeftCoord.longitude) * 1.1; // Add a little extra space on the sides

    region = [mapView regionThatFits:region];
    [mapView setRegion:region animated:YES];
}

Answer 2

For iOS7 forward the best way to do this is:

//from API docs: 
//- (void)showAnnotations:(NSArray *)annotations animated:(BOOL)animated NS_AVAILABLE(10_9, 7_0);
[self.mapView showAnnotations:self.mapView.annotations animated:YES];

For my personal project (prior to iOS7) I simply added a category on the MKMapView class to encapsulate the "visible area" functionality for a very common operation: setting it to be able to see all the currently-loaded annotations on the MKMapView instance (this includes as many pins as you might have placed, as well as the user's location). the result was this:

.h file

#import <MapKit/MapKit.h>

@interface MKMapView (Extensions)

-(void)ij_setVisibleRectToFitAllLoadedAnnotationsAnimated:(BOOL)animated;
-(void)ij_setVisibleRectToFitAnnotations:(NSArray *)annotations animated:(BOOL)animated;


@end

.m file

#import "MKMapView+Extensions.h"

@implementation MKMapView (Extensions)

/**
 *  Changes the currently visible portion of the map to a region that best fits all the currently loadded annotations on the map, and it optionally animates the change.
 *
 *  @param animated is the change should be perfomed with an animation.
 */
-(void)ij_setVisibleRectToFitAllLoadedAnnotationsAnimated:(BOOL)animated
{
    MKMapView * mapView = self;

    NSArray * annotations = mapView.annotations;

    [self ij_setVisibleRectToFitAnnotations:annotations animated:animated];

}


/**
 *  Changes the currently visible portion of the map to a region that best fits the provided annotations array, and it optionally animates the change.
    All elements from the array must conform to the <MKAnnotation> protocol in order to fetch the coordinates to compute the visible region of the map.
 *
 *  @param annotations an array of elements conforming to the <MKAnnotation> protocol, holding the locations for which the visible portion of the map will be set.
 *  @param animated    wether or not the change should be perfomed with an animation.
 */
-(void)ij_setVisibleRectToFitAnnotations:(NSArray *)annotations animated:(BOOL)animated
{
    MKMapView * mapView = self;

    MKMapRect r = MKMapRectNull;
    for (id<MKAnnotation> a in annotations) {
        ZAssert([a conformsToProtocol:@protocol(MKAnnotation)], @"ERROR: All elements of the array MUST conform to the MKAnnotation protocol. Element (%@) did not fulfill this requirement", a);
        MKMapPoint p = MKMapPointForCoordinate(a.coordinate);
        //MKMapRectUnion performs the union between 2 rects, returning a bigger rect containing both (or just one if the other is null). here we do it for rects without a size (points)
        r = MKMapRectUnion(r, MKMapRectMake(p.x, p.y, 0, 0));
    }

    [mapView setVisibleMapRect:r animated:animated];

}

@end

As you can see, I've added 2 methods so far: one for setting the visible region of the map to the one that fits all currently-loaded annotations on the MKMapView instance, and another method to set it to any array of objects. So to set the mapView's visible region the code would then be as simple as:

   //the mapView instance  
    [self.mapView ij_setVisibleRectToFitAllLoadedAnnotationsAnimated:animated]; 

I hope it helps =)

Answer 3

Don't get scared by the two first lines, you can ignore what's right of = signs, as it will be overwritten below...

I think the issue is here :

region.span.longitudeDelta = 0.0;

Answer 4

Swift 4 version of Robertibiris answer:

mapView.showAnnotations(mapView.annotations, animated: true)