[Proj] "Double Ellipsoid" error, reproduction
Glynn Clements
glynn at gclements.plus.com
Mon Dec 8 13:05:46 EST 2008
Gerald I. Evenden wrote:
> Would it not be possible to write cs2cs where all the proj control is
> available on both sides of the +to dividing line? That is, the pipeline
> script in cs2cs would could look like:
>
> cs2cs +proj=merc +R=12..9 +datum_conversion_options +to \
> +proj=merc +ellps=<Potsdam's ellipsoid>
>
> If the "proj=" were omitted on either side, the +latlon would be the default.
> The <datum conversion options> could be placed anywhere.
>
> A big part of the problem is that things like EPSG or data sets defining US
> state plane coordinates system do indeed bind projection-ellipsoid-datum into
> a single definition. And that is fine. *BUT* we do need the flexibility to
> handle the odd case where the "cs" is not in a convenient library of standard
> systems. The "cs" in cs2cs neet not be in EPSG or NAD data sets and the user
> should be free to define all the details themselves like I have proto'ed in
> the last script example.
>
> cs2cs may already do this but it is unclear from current discussions.
cs2cs allows specification of an ellipsoid and/or datum for both the
source and destination . Essentially, you have a pipeline of:
cartographic
[inv.src.proj.]
lat/lon
[src.ellipsoid]
geocentric
[src.datum]
WGS84
[dst.datum]
geocentric
[dst.ellipsoid]
lat/lon
[fwd.dst.proj.]
cartographic
(where some stages are optional).
However, you only get to specify two ellipsoids and two datums, so you
can't convert e.g. ED50 to WGS84 then project using spherical
Mercator; the final projection will automatically use the WGS84
ellipsoid parameters.
Presumably it was taken for granted that if you've gone to the trouble
of converting to a specific ellipsoid, you then want to use that
ellipsoid for the projection, rather than choosing a completely
different ellipsoid.
--
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>
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