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Ellipsoidal and Cartesian Coordinates Conversion - Navipedia

The document describes the conversion between ellipsoidal coordinates (latitude, longitude, height) and Cartesian coordinates (x,y,z). It provides equations to convert from ellipsoidal to Cartesian coordinates using properties of the ellipsoid like radius of curvature and eccentricity. It also describes an iterative procedure to convert from Cartesian to ellipsoidal coordinates by first calculating an initial latitude value then improving the estimates of latitude and height through repeated calculations.

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George Ponparau
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240 views

Ellipsoidal and Cartesian Coordinates Conversion - Navipedia

The document describes the conversion between ellipsoidal coordinates (latitude, longitude, height) and Cartesian coordinates (x,y,z). It provides equations to convert from ellipsoidal to Cartesian coordinates using properties of the ellipsoid like radius of curvature and eccentricity. It also describes an iterative procedure to convert from Cartesian to ellipsoidal coordinates by first calculating an initial latitude value then improving the estimates of latitude and height through repeated calculations.

Uploaded by

George Ponparau
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Ellipsoidal and Cartesian Coordinates Conversion - Navipedia http://www.navipedia.net/index.php?title=Ellipsoidal_and_Cartesian_...

Ellipsoidal and Cartesian Coordinates Conversion


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The (x,y,z) ECEF cartesian coordinates can be expressed Fundamentals


in the ellipsoidal coordinates , where and λ Ellipsoidal and Cartesian
Title
are, respectively, the latitude and longitude from the Coordinates Conversion
ellipsoid, and h the height above it. Figure 1 illustrates J. Sanz Subirana, J.M. Juan Zornoza
the relation between Cartesian and ellipsoidal and M. Hernández-Pajares,
Author(s)
coordinates. Technical University of Catalonia,
Spain.
Level Advanced

Year of
2011
Publication

Figure 1: Cartesian (x,y,z) and ellipsoidal

From Ellipsoidal to Cartesian coordinates


The Cartesian coordinates of a point (x,y,z) can be obtained from the ellipsoidal coordinates by
the next expressions:

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Ellipsoidal and Cartesian Coordinates Conversion - Navipedia http://www.navipedia.net/index.php?title=Ellipsoidal_and_Cartesian_...

where N is the radius of curvature in the prime vertical:

and where the eccentricity e is related with the semi-major axis a, the semi-minor axis b and the flattening
factor by:

From Cartesian to Ellipsoidal coordinates


The ellipsoidal coordinates of a point can be obtained from the cartesian coordinates (x,y,z) as
follows:

The longitude λ is given by:

The latitude is computed by an iterative procedure.

1. The initial value is given by:

with .

2. Improved values of , as well as the height h, are computed iterating in the equations:

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Ellipsoidal and Cartesian Coordinates Conversion - Navipedia http://www.navipedia.net/index.php?title=Ellipsoidal_and_Cartesian_...

The iterations are repeated until the change between two successive values of are smaller than
the precision required.

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