START First steps Deutsch Guide : Coordinate lists

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General structure of a coordinate record Working with coordinate lists Type of coordinate system Column format and automatic point naming Coordinate scale factor for grid systems GPS reference point of HTW Dresden Filter, save and load coordinate lists More decimal digits and overlong pointnames in coordinate lists
Coordinate lists are lists of coordinate records, a special kind of tabular data records. Edit, filter, sort and save coordinate lists for later use in the computations.

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At the moment coordinate lists are used by the following computation tools:











Additionally, such lists are generated by

START First steps Deutsch General structure of a coordinate record

Empty rows and pure comment rows are ignored.

In each other row of a coordinate list one point is defined. Each row consists of three up to five fields separated by semicolon or white space (= column separator):

START First steps Deutsch Working with coordinate lists

The succession of rows in a coordinate list may be arbitrary, except for polygon computations and for the line scale factor, where the succession defines the polygon or the line.

Every coordinate list requires a name of coordinate system, i.e. an almost arbitrary string with restrictions as for point names, a type of coordinate system and a column format.

START First steps Deutsch Type of coordinate system

The following types are accepted:

Type of systemWhat is this? not available in
XYZ or YXZ lefthanded cartesian lefthanded system, e.g. topocentric horizont system



XYZ or YXZ righthanded cartesian righthanded system, e.g. geocentric equator system or mathematical system



Northing Easting Height or Easting Northing Height Grid system like UTM or Gauss-Krüger referring to the reference ellipsoid and more parameters chosen under

Longitude Latitude Height or Latitude Longitude Height ellipsoidal (or spherical) geocentric system
referring to the reference ellipsoid and the Latitude/Longitude unit chosen under








righthanded system
righthanded system
lefthanded system
lefthanded system

The following rules must be obeyed:

START First steps Deutsch Column format and automatic point naming

The following formats are accepted:

pointname coordinates pointname code coordinates coordinates
Example:Example:Example:
P1 23.06 16.10 17.11
Q2 14.02 19.63 17.05
007 63.3 44 //2D point
P1 Code1 23.06 16.10 17.11
Q2 Code1 14.02 19.63 17.05
007 Code2 63.3 44 //2D point
//Code is currently ignored
23.06 16.10 17.11
14.02 19.63 17.05
63.3 44 //2D point
//Points are auto-
//matically named.

All three lists are identical, but in the latter list the points are automatically named. The standard automatic pointnames are 1,2,3,… Different options can be selected via . Please note the following examples:

initial nameincrementautomatical pointnames
1 (default)1 (default)1; 2; 3; …
1010010; 110; 210; …
10-10010; -90; -190; …
abc10100abc10; abc110; abc210; …
abc10-100abc10; abc-90; abc-190; …
abc100abc0; abc100; abc200; …

START First steps Deutsch Coordinate scale factor for grid systems

Grid scale factor
grid scale factor k,
ground distance e,
grid distance

Grid systems (type of system: Northing Easting Height or Easting Northing Height) are based on a local grading of the curved ellipsoid of revolution by Gaussian mapping (= Transversale Mercator projection on the ellipsoid). Due to the inevitable deformations the unit of grid coordinates does not coincide with the metric length unit . As a result of the conformity of the Gaussian mapping, the grid scale factor k is nearly constant for a small point area and can be computed automatically.

Details are found here:

When doing computations with grid coordinates, it is supposed that all other metric values and scales are not distorted by the grid scale.

Details are found here: Other metric values and scales

If you want to compute an accurate grid scale for each individual point you should use .

START First steps Deutsch GPS reference point of HTW Dresden

GPS reference point
of HTW Dresden
GPS-Referenzpunkt derGPS reference point of} HTW Dresden

The University of Applied Sciences, Dresden (Germany) provides a reference point for testing your mobile navigation device. In the with ellipsoidal height h the point has the following coordinates:

λ = 13.734806°, φ = 51.033778°, h = 160.5
or
λ = 13°44`.0884, φ = 51°2`.0267, h = 160.5
or
λ = 13°44`5``.304, φ = 51°2`1``.602, h = 160.5
or
E = 33U 411287.9 m, N = 5654342.8 m, h = 160.5

Below we give a number of equivalent notations for the coordinates of this point. Alternative notations of latitude and longitude explains units of measurement . In this table the chosen output decimal separator is not in effect.

Settings Notation of coordinates Comment
Type of system Longitude Latitude Height , unit of latitude/longitude Grad , column format Point Coordinates HTW-reference-point 13.734806 51.033778 160.5
and now with column format Point Code Coordinates HTW-reference-point pillar 13.734806 51.033778 160.5
and now with column separator semicolon HTW-reference-point;pillar; 13.734806;51.033778;160.5
and now with column format Coordinates 13,734806 51,033778 160.5 Input optionally with decimal comma
and now with unit of latitude/longitude DegMin 13.440884 51.020267 160.5 Format ggg.mmddddd
and now with unit of latitude/longitude DegMinSec 13.4405304 51.0201602 160.5 Format ggg.mmssddd
and now without height specification 13.4405304 51.0201602 not possible with all computing tools
and now with alternative notation for angles 13.44`05.304`` 51°02`01.602`` units of measurement
and now with type of system Latitude Longitude Height 51.0201602 13.4405304 160.5 m What follows the third coordinates on a row, is ignored (here m)
and now with type of system Easting Northing Height 411287.9 5654342.8 160.5 m
and now with type of system Northing Easting Height 5654342.8 411287,9 160,5 Input optionally with decimal comma
and now with easting preceeded by the zone number 5654342.8 33411287.9 160.5 For the easting only 6 digits before the decimal separator are used.
and now with easting preceeded by the last digit of the zone number 5654342.8 3411287.9 160.5
and now with abbreviated coordinates 54342.8 11287.9 160.5 Use false northing= -5600000 and false easting= -400000
and now without height specification 54342.8 11287.9 not possible with all computation tools
and now with type of system X Y Z righthanded 3904281.170   954274.291   4936033.017
and now with type of system Y X Z righthanded 954274.291   3904281.170   4936033.017

START First steps Deutsch Filter, save and load coordinate lists

Filter and sort points
Filter and sort points: Ascending sort by X yields
7C C 71 7c 7 70.
Ascending sort by pointname yields
7 7C 7c 70 71 C.

Coordinate lists may be

Two saved coordinate lists can be managed at the same time. When filtering and sorting by pointnames the comparison is lexicographic, this means that e.g. 1610 is between 10 and 20. The comparison is case-sensitive. The comparison of coordinates is of course numerical.

The third coordinates (Z or height) of a list may be manipulated as follows:

The filtered and/or sorted list may be transferred to some computation tool and processed or it may be transferred to ''Edit/view list'', while the original list is overwritten.

START First steps Deutsch More decimal digits and overlong pointnames in coordinate lists

If in the coordinate lists of the computed points not enough decimal digits are displayed for you, it is recommended to load this list in a new browser tab or to a new coordinate list. Then you see more decimal digits.

When saving a list, possibly a previously saved list is overwritten. But for displaying a list in or or in a new tab this is not necessary.

If you use overlong pointnames, they are truncated in tables mostly to 12, sometimes to 9 leading characters. A warning is issued. To see the pointnames in full length, the same trick can be used.

See Filter, load and save coordinate lists.

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