Map projections and coordinate systems > Geographic transformations
Geographic transformation methods |
|
|
Release 9.2
Last modified November 9, 2006 |
Print all topics in : "Geographic transformations" |
Moving your data between coordinate systems sometimes includes transforming between the geographic coordinate systems.
Because the geographic coordinate systems contain datums that are based on spheroids, a geographic transformation also changes the underlying spheroid. There are several methods, which have different levels of accuracy and ranges, for transforming between datums. The accuracy of a particular transformation can range from centimeters to meters depending on the method and the quality and number of control points available to define the transformation parameters.
A geographic transformation is always defined in a particular direction. The picture above illustrates a transformation that converts from NAD 1927 to WGS 1984. When working with geographic transformations, if no mention is made of the direction, an application or tool like ArcMap will handle the directionality automatically. For example, if converting data from WGS 1984 to NAD 1927, you can pick a transformation called NAD_1927_to_WGS_1984_3 and the software will apply it correctly.
(ArcMap automatically loads one geographic transformation. It's designed for the lower 48 states of the United States and converts between NAD 1927 and NAD 1983.)
A geographic transformation always converts geographic (longitude–latitude) coordinates. Some methods convert the geographic coordinates to geocentric (X,Y,Z) coordinates, transform the X,Y,Z coordinates, and convert the new values back to geographic coordinates.
These include the Geocentric Translation, Molodensky, and Coordinate Frame methods.
Learn about Equation-based transformation methods
Other methods, such as NADCON and NTv2 use a grid of differences and convert the longitude–latitude values directly.
Learn about Grid-based transformation methods