Theme: Geodesy

Geodetic data[edit]

Main article: Datum transformation

Because geodetic point coordinates (and heights) are always obtained in a system that has been constructed itself using real observations, geodesists introduce the concept of a "geodetic datum": a physical realization of a coordinate system used for describing point locations. The realization is the result of choosing conventional coordinate values for one or more datum points.

In the case of height data, it suffices to choose one datum point: the reference benchmark, typically a tide gauge at the shore. Thus we have vertical data like the NAP (Normaal Amsterdams Peil), the North American Vertical Datum 1988 (NAVD 88), the Kronstadt datum, the Trieste datum, and so on.

In case of plane or spatial coordinates, we typically need several datum points. A regional, ellipsoidal datum like ED 50 can be fixed by prescribing the undulation of the geoid and the deflection of the vertical in one datum point, in this case the Helmert Tower in Potsdam. However, an overdetermined ensemble of datum points can also be used.

Changing the coordinates of a point set referring to one datum, so to make them refer to another datum, is called a datum transformation. In the case of vertical data, this consists of simply adding a constant shift to all height values. In the case of plane or spatial coordinates, datum transformation takes the form of a similarity or Helmert transformation, consisting of a rotation and scaling operation in addition to a simple translation. In the plane, a Helmert transformation has four parameters; in space, seven.