Geodetic datums

A gentle introduction to Geodetic

Datums and Co-ordinate Systems

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Land Surveying
 Introduction
• Geodetic datums define the reference systems
that describe the size and shape of the earth
• Datums have evolved from a spherical earth
to ellipsoidal models
• Modern geodetic datums range from flat earth
models (used in plane surveying) to complex
models that completely describe the size,
shape, orientation, gravity field and velocity of
the earth

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Major application fields
u Surveying

u Mapping

u Navigation

u Astronomy The Geoid and the vertical

u Geographic Information System

u The Science of Geodesy is the central despline
for this topic

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 The shape of the Earth - History
v an oyster
(the Babylonians before 3000 B.C.)

va circular disk
(early antiquity; approximately 5 – 300 B.C. but this concept
survived till the 19th century)

va very round pear

(Christopher Columbus in the last years of his life)

va perfect ball  a sphere

(Pythagoras in 6th century)

v an ellipsoid, flattened at the poles

(Newton around the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries)

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 The shape of the Earth
u The surface of the Earth is irregular and
continuously changing in shape due to
irregularities in mass distribution inside the
earth.
u The Earth has a “potato-like” shape
u The Earth as a Geoid
u It is the earth surface resulting if:
v no topography would exist
v oceans would cover the whole earth
v the resulting water surface is
only affected by gravity forces
H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 The Geoid and the vertical datum continued

u Mean Sea Level (MSL) is

used as zero altitude
u the ocean’s water level is
registered at coastal
locations over several years.
u Sea level at the
measurement location is
affected by:
v tidal differences
v ocean currents
v winds
v water temperature
H. Shamaoma salinity
v SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Datums

uA wrong datum may lead to position errors of

hundreds of metres
u Various mapping organisation use different
datums

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Why coordinate systems & Datums
v Integration of data from different sources
v Combining national and global data sets
v Use of satellite positioning technology (e.g. GPS)
v GIS users need to understand basic concepts and
terminology of Coordinate systems

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Geometric Earth models
• Flat models
– Used in plane surveying
– Earth curvature ignored
– Applicable short distances of less 10 km
• Spherical models
– Represents with a sphere of a specific radius
– Used for short range navigation and global distance
estimation
– Fail to accurately model the earth due to polar flattening
• Ellipsoidal earth models
– Model the earth accurately over long distance
– Adopted for national mapping throughout the world
– GPS use these models to compute positions on the earth

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Reference Ellipsoids & Horizontal Datums
u Usually defined by equatorial radius and
flattening(the relationship between equatorial
and polar radii)
u semi-minor axis (polar radius) and
eccentricity can computed from these terms.

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Ellipsoidal parametres

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Reference Ellipsoids

Reference
ellipsoid for
Zambia

Reference
ellipsoid for GPS
measurements

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Earth surfaces

Topographic surface

Ellipsoid surface
Geoid surface

The topographical surface is the actual surface of the

land and at some moment in time
The Ellipsoid surface that is the mathematical figure
Important for aircraft navigation

closely approximates the shape of the Earth

Geoid surface, that is the surface that closely
approximate the mean sea level
H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Global Coordinate Systems

u Various systems coordinate systems used to

specify location on the Earth surface
u Geographic coordinate system is the most
commonly used
v Latitude, Longitude, and height)

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Global coordinate systems

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Geographic coordinate system

Data is stored in degrees

in latitude and longitude
coordinates

60˚E, 55˚N

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Geocentric Coordinates

The Z-axis points toward the North Pole.

X-Axis intersection of the plane define by the prime
meridian and the equatorial plane
Y-axis orthogonal to X and Z-axes.
H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Projected Coordinate Systems
A projected coordinate
system is always based on a
geographic coordinate
system
Data is stored in E, N meter
coordinates
Zambia uses the Transverse
Mercator map projection
with different Zones

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Geodetic datums
u Reference model of earth designed to best fit the
geoid
u Datum is defined by the shape and size of the
ellipsoid and its location relative to the centre of the
earth or a point on the earth surface
u Datums include
v Horizontal datum, Vertical datum and Compete datums

u Hundreds of datums in use around the world

v In Zambia we use Arc1950 or Arc1960 datums
v GPS is based on World Geodetic system 1984
(WGS_84) datum

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Reference datums

Richard Knippers 2003

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Geodetic Datums

Reference
datum for
Zambia

Reference datum
for GPS
measurements

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Datum shifts

Using a wrong Datum can cause positional errors of up to 1 Km

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Datum conversion
u Datum conversions are accomplished thru
two many ways:
v Three parameter conversion
üUses three offsets between two datums

v Seven parameter conversion

ü3 translations
ü3 rotations
üScale

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Map projections
u Mathematical formulae used to convert
locations from a 3D sphere to 2D maps
u Representing an area of the 3D earth on 2D map
results in distortions
u One of the following will always be distorted
v Area, distance, direction, or shape
üType of projection used depends on the intended use of map
and which features are to be preserved
üSmall scale maps have larger distortions than large scale
maps

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Map projection
Transforming each point on the surface with geographical
coordinates (φ, λ) to Cartesian coordinates (x, y) representing
the same position on the map

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Projection class

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM)
Projection
u A systematic Transverse Mercator projection
v Covering the entire world
v Used by USGS topographic maps since 1950s.

uA conformal projection using a cylindrical

developable surface.
u Area is distorted but not very serious within a
zone.
v Secant to the spheroid.

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 UTM Zones Around World
u Each zone has 6°, 60 zones around world. First zone
is180°W - 174°W; central meridian is 177°W

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 UTM Zone Details
u Each Zone is 6 degrees wide (84ºN to 80ºS).
v Origin at the Equator, 500,000m west of the zone
central Meridian
v Coordinates discontinuous across zone boundaries
v Coordinates are always positive (10,000,000 offset for
South Zones)

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying
 Datums

H. Shamaoma SBE Dept of Urban and Regional Planning ES230: Introduction Land Surveying