Coordinate System

coordinate system
 coordinate system

Global 3D coordinates are ok, but ...

Have you ever seen them?

Usually 3D location is split up into

• 2D horizontal
• 1D height
The shape of the earth
 Geodetic Horizontal Datum

How to fix a coordinate surface

to the Earth?
approximate the real shape of the earth by an ellipsoid:

•fix the dimensions of the ellipsoid define its location with respect
to the shape of the
earth
Approximations of the Earth
Transformation of Scale Factor
 It defines the origin and
local ellipsoid: orientation of latitude and
longitude lines. A local
datum aligns its spheroid to
closely fit the Earth’s surface
in a particular area and its
'origin point' is located on
the surface of the Earth. The
coordinates of the 'origin
point' are fixed and all other
points are calculated from
this control point. The
coordinate system origin of a
local datum is not at the
center of the Earth. NAD27
and the European Datum of
1950 are local datums.
global best-fitted ellipsoid: In the last fifteen years, satellite
data has provided geodesists with
new measurements to define the
best Earth-fitting ellipsoid, which
relates coordinates to the Earth’s
center of mass. An Earth-centered,
or geocentric, datum does not have
an initial point of origin like a local
datum. The Earth’s center of mass
is, in a sense, the origin. The most
recently developed and widely used
datum is the World Geodetic
System of 1984 (WGS84). It serves
as the framework for supporting
locational measurement worldwide.
GPS measurements are based upon
the WGS84 datum.
Relation Between Earth’s irregular surface -
Ellipsoid and Geoid
Datum shifts
Datum
Accuracy ~10 m
Ellipsoid dX dY dZ Region of use

Adindian Clarke 1880 -118 -14 218 Mean for Ethopia, Sudan

Arc 1950 Clarke 1880 -143 -90 -294 Mean for Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi,
Swaziland, Zaire, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Djarkarta (Batavia) Bessel 1841 -377 682 -50 Indonesia

European Datum International -87 -98 -121 Mean for Western Europe
1950 1924

Indian Everest 282 726 254 Bangladesh, India and Nepal

(India 1830)

Minna Clarke 1880 -81 -84 115 Cameroon

North American Clarke 1866 -8 160 176 Mean for USA

1927 (NAD 27)
South American South -57 1 -41 Mean for Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile,
1969 American Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay,
1969 Peru, Trinidad&Tobago, Venezuela
Concept of Map Projection and Coordinate
System
 Map Projections
conical

cylindrical

azimuthal
 map projections

normal transversal
 Coordinate System
• Locating points relative to one another
requires use of concepts of direction an
distance. Basically there are two types of
coordinate systems.
– Geographical Coordinate system
– Plane rectangular coordinates (Cartesian
Coordinate system)
For larger areas geographical coordinate system is
used and for small areas rectangular coordinate
system is used
Geographic coordinates
 Geographic coordinates
• North south distance called latitude
• East west distance called longitude
• The one dividing the earth in half,
equidistant between the poles was
named, the equator
• The series north of equator is called
north-latitude and the series south of
equator is called south latitude. Since
the earth is an oblate (flattened at the
top), the north-south line (meridian)
has less curvature at poles and more
curvature at equator. 1º difference in
latitude near the equator is about
110.6 km and 1º difference in latitude
near the poles about 111.7 km near
the poles.
• Longitude is defined by infinite set of
great circles called meridians
arranged perpendicular to the
parallels. Since all parallels are
concentric circles, they all rotate at
the same angular speed 360º per day
or 15º per hour. In 1884 it was agreed
in an international conference that a
meridian passing through Royal
Observatory Greenwich, near London
will be accepted as reference
meridian and 0º longitude.
 geographic coordinates
•advantages of geographic coordinates:
•one system for the entire earth
•more or less conform to the shape of the earth, so
no systematic distortions
•easy to map in different map projections
•disadvantages of geographic coordinates:
•spherical, not planimetric coordinates
•must use spherical trigonometry to measure areas
and distances
•must project onto flat maps where the grid lines are
curved
 Plane rectangular coordinates (Cartesian
Coordinate system)
• A point of origin at the intersection Y- axis
of two conveniently located
perpendicular “axes”.

(0,0)
X-axis

Origin
 The UTM system
• It is very common

• The area of the earth between 84º N and 80º S latitude is divided into
north-south columns 6º of longitude wide called zones. There are
numbered 1 to 60 east ward, beginning at the 180 º meridian.

• Each column is divided into quadrilaterals 8 º of latitude high.

• The rows of quadrilaterals are assigned letters c to x consecutively (with 1

and 0 omitted) beginning at 80 º S latitude. Row x is beginning 12 º
latitude extending from 72 º N to 84 º N. Each quadrilateral is assigned a
number letter combination.
UTM Zone
 Georeferencing
Georeferencing refers to the location of a layer in space as defined
by co-ordinate referencing system. The geo-relational approach
involves abstracting geographic information into a series of
independently layers or coverage’s each representing a selected set
of closely associated geographic features (e.g. roads, landuse,
river, etc.). Each layer is a theme of geographic feature and the
database is organised in the thematic layers.

That way users can combine simple feature sets representing

complex relationship in the real world. This approach borrows
heavily the concepts of relational DBMS, and is typically closely
integrated with such systems.
 Georeferencing
real world map
object
control
point

rotation 2 translations,

scale