Plotting Lines Based on Their Course

Am I correct in assuming that this must be done in Google Sheets and not Excel?

I can see that you found my unit circle spreadsheet. You are correct that this should provide a nice template for a "vector diagram," but I'm not sure how well it will export to Google Sheets. I have usually found that charts made in Excel don't export to other spreadsheets very well. In my experience with charts in spreadsheets, it is best to create the chart in the spreadsheet app that you need.

I'm not very familiar with Google Sheets chart engine. I could not see a way to get multiple x,y data series in the chart, so I ended up making one single data series in a line chart. The basic idea is to start at one point in the diagram (I started at the origin) then draw the lines without lifting your "pencil." I was able to figure out a basic 3 vector vector diagram by:

1) First I set up one row to convert polar coordinates to rectangular coordinates, since this is the basic calculation behind everything.
1a) In A5 I enter a radius/magnitude, in B5 I enter an angle (I'm assuming you would want to enter the angle in degrees).
1b) In C5, I calculate the corresponding x coordinate =r*sin(theta) =A5*SIN(RADIANS(B5)).
1c) In D5, I calculate the corresponding y coordinate =r*cos(theta) =A5*COS(RADIANS(B5)).
2) Select A5:D5 and copy down as far as needed. I decided to calculate the circle every 10 degrees, so I copied down to row 46, with 6 points to calculate and draw 3 vectors.
3) Start drawing at r=0, theta=0, in A5 and B5.
4) In A6, B6, enter the r and theta for the first vector.
5) In A6 and B6, enter r=0 and theta =0 again.
6) In A7 and B7, enter the r and theta for the second vector
7) A8=0, B8=0
8) A9=r, B9=theta for third vector.
9) A10=r for third vector. B10=B9+10
10) Select A10:B10 and copy down to the end of the list (row 46 in my case).
11) Select C5:D46 and insert your line chart.
12) Edit the chart to format the three vector points with a unique marker so that you can see which vector is which.

From there, I'm not sure what to recommend, but that should give you the beginnings of a vector diagram to show your boat's bearing, along with vectors to represent wind and wave motion.

Is that going to be even close to what you want?

Hello MrShorty,

Thanks for your feedback.

I think I'm close to something that could work.

Firstly, could you check if this is what you imagined -> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?gid=0#gid=0

I had some issues here:

4) In A6, B6, enter the r and theta for the first vector.
5) In A6 and B6, enter r=0 and theta =0 again.

I guess you meant A7 and B7 for point 5).

As it is right now, vector 3 determines the magnitude of the circle what can cause the other vectors to go over the circle.

That is pretty much exactly what I imagined, in spite of my typos, that you were able to correct.

You are correct that I chose to use vector 3 to determine the radius of the circle. If you want to use a different value for the radius, enter/calculate the desired radius in A11:A46. That will leave you with a line connecting the end of the 3rd vector with the starting point of the circle. I don't know enough about Google's chart engine to know off the top of my head how to fix that (assuming it is even a problem).

The other change I might make is put a MOD(B10+10,360) in B11 (copy down) so that the bearing will always be between 0 and 360. A bearing of 405 is technically correct, but someone somewhere is going to get irritated seeing a bearing that is outside of 0 to 360.