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geographic transformation
See Also:
geographic coordinate system
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[coordinate systems]
A systematic conversion of the latitude-longitude values for a set of points from one geographic coordinate system to equivalent values in another geographic coordinate system. Depending on the geographic coordinate systems involved, the transformation can be accomplished in various ways. Typically, equations are used to model the position and orientation of the "from" and "to" geographic coordinate systems in three-dimensional coordinate space; the transformation parameters may include translation, rotation, and scaling. Other methods, including one used in transformations between NAD 1927 and NAD 1983, use files in which the differences between the two geographic coordinate systems are given for a set of coordinates; the values of other points are interpolated from these.
