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Failing to convert XYZ to DMS
Posted by Adi17 on October 30, 2021 at 2:10 amHi reader,
Could someone please help to just explain how to do the conversion, any link or formula? I am happy to study and do the rest, just need to be pointed in the right direction
The situation is:-
I work in Railway as a track maintainer and have very little knowledge of GPS coordinates and surveying.
I am trying to make a KML file to use in google earth to easily navigate along the track for locating signalling assets.
I have a list of locations(Melbourne, Australia) in a spreadsheet whose coordinates are in geometry(XYZ) format and I am trying to convert it to Lat Lon in DMS so I can make KML file. I checked the majority of converters online available but I am struggling to understand how to do the conversion. By using google map I extracted Lat and Lon in DMS. Can some please help?
For example, in the spreadsheet, I have the following XYZ data:-
X: 16151807.3405 Y: -4566010.7186 Z: NaN
When I track the location on google map I found the value in Lat Lon is
Lat: 37?ø 54′ 17.91383″ SLon: 145?ø 5′ 38.94994″ E.Thank you
Adi
mathteacher replied 2 years, 11 months ago 7 Members · 25 Replies -
25 Replies
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Adi one thing I see right off is you have something wrong with your X coord. Please check you data.
I have one question for you; for the Z coord. what is NaN
I am sure that Australia has some transformation software but you can get up on the internet and go to NGS web site and use their software.
JOHN NOLTON
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NaN is computerese for Not a Number, meaning it has no usable value.
Someone should be along eventually who can tell how to convert what appears to be a projection grid system used there.
Perhaps this will help with an overview
https://parametricmonkey.com/2020/04/08/understanding-australias-coordinate-systems/
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@bill93 They use Lat, Long and elev. just like we do he in the good old USA; except their Lat. is -(minus) and their Long. is East.
JOHN NOLTON
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His X and Y look like their version of USA State Plane systems or UTM. He needs to get from whichever system that is to lat-lon of its datum, and if that isn’t close enough then to whatever datum Google uses.
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The lat/long goes to a RR near Melbourne
UTM Zone 55 South
X=332448.39
Y=5803015.65
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Posted by: @bill93
His X and Y look like their version of USA State Plane systems or UTM. He needs to get from whichever system that is to lat-lon of its datum, and if that isn’t close enough then to whatever datum Google uses.
They arenƒ??t UTM. Australia seems to use UTM according to their version of NGS.
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@dave-karoly Don’t know what is going on yet with his Coord. He has to come back with more information and then I am sure we can help him. Instead of getting more white hair I will let him tell us what system he is on. The first thing I thought of , in this modern day of GPS was ECEF XYZ coord. There is plenty of information on whatever system he has. It sounds like he is just getting started and wants to learn more (GOOD FOR HIM).
JOHN NOLTON
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This is from the NGS Lat Long to ECEF converter (XYZ):
============================================================= Latitude Longitude Ellip_Ht Ellipsoid INPUT = S375417.91383 E1450538.94994 1.000 GRS80 ============================================================= X (Meters) Y (Meters) Z (Meters) ELLIPSOID ------------- ------------- ------------- --------- -4132382.7775 2883417.1605 -3897127.8659 GRS80
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Posted by: @john-nolton
@dave-karoly Don’t know what is going on yet with his Coord. He has to come back with more information and then I am sure we can help him. Instead of getting more white hair I will let him tell us what system he is on. The first thing I thought of , in this modern day of GPS was ECEF XYZ coord. There is plenty of information on whatever system he has. It sounds like he is just getting started and wants to learn more (GOOD FOR HIM).
JOHN NOLTON
It doesnƒ??t look like either UTM or ECEF (which requires a Y).
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The lat-lon at zero ellipsoid height converts to WGS84 or similar systems meters
-4,132,382.1302,883,416.709-3,897,127.252so we can rule out that he has world coordinates with the Z missing.
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Posted by: @bill93
The lat-lon at zero ellipsoid height converts to WGS84 or similar systems meters
-4,132,382.1302,883,416.709-3,897,127.252so we can rule out that he has world coordinates with the Z missing.TBC has a bunch of choices for Australia. I tried VICGRID but it doesn’t look the same:
1 2508280.098 2399567.190 -4.694 RR -
I tried a bunch of different choices for Australia but none of them fit in TBC. I even tried UTM Zone 54.
Maybe the RR has their own map projection. The source of the XY data hopefully has information about the source.
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@dave-karoly Dave, give your self a rest. Let Ari give us the details of the projection. Also remember that the UTM south of the equator has a + 10 000 000 meter added to the North Coord.(x (small x, not large X used in ECEF coord.)).
I am sure we will hear back from Adi17
JOHN NOLTON
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Once you resolve what Cartesian system your coordinates are in you can use tools at the following site:
https://www.icsm.gov.au/datum/gda-transformation-products-and-tools
In your post you refer to converting XYZ to DMS. You further explain you mean latitude and longitude. You provide an XY coordinate but not a Z. Likewise the geographic coordinate you provide are only latitude and longitude but no (ellipsoid height).
Earth Centered Earth Fixed XYZ coordinates can be readily transformed into Latitude, Longitude and ellipsoid height with a number of web-based tools like this one:
https://geodesy.noaa.gov/TOOLS/XYZ/xyz.shtml
BTW doing the computations by hand yields decimal degrees which are easily converted to degrees, minutes and seconds.
This leads me (and other posters) to believe your Cartesian coordinates are plane coordinates in some system. What was the source of your coordinates?
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Posted by: @john-nolton
@dave-karoly Don’t know what is going on yet with his Coord. He has to come back with more information and then I am sure we can help him. Instead of getting more white hair I will let him tell us what system he is on. The first thing I thought of , in this modern day of GPS was ECEF XYZ coord. There is plenty of information on whatever system he has. It sounds like he is just getting started and wants to learn more (GOOD FOR HIM).
JOHN NOLTON
Thank you, @dave-karoly, @@john-nolton, @bill93, @geeoddmike very much appreciate your time.
And indeed I am just getting started with the coordinates system and found out that Google earth can be a game-changer for my for me and my colleague. It will help us not to carry drawings always with us when we walk across track in night.
To provide you guys with more information, I did a bit of digging and found the below information.
On the webpage, it says this application uses the ArcGIS Platform and Geocortex Essential.
When I point the cursor on the location to show more info, I get 4 options to show the coordinates. It says Lat Long in DD, Lat Long in DMS, MGA Zone 55 (GDA 1194) and MGA Zone 55 (GDA 2020). The values are as follow( I have attached a few screenshots of what I saw on the webpage)
Address for that coordinate is: Haughton Rd, Oakleigh, Melbourne, Victoria, 3166
Lat Long in DD
X: 145.09417
Y: -37.90497
Lat Long in DMS
Lat: 37?ø 54′ 17.91172″ S
Lon: 145?ø 5′ 38.95825″ E
MGA Zone 55 (GDA 1994)
X: 332449.49908
Y: 5803016.67281
MGA Zone 55 (GDA 2020)
X: 332447.58846
Y: 5803017.80855
The above values I extracted manually.
Now when I export data as a CSV spreadsheet for some reason it shows geometry in XYZ.
Please let me know if can assist you with any further information. Let me know if the screenshot is blurry, will send again.
I am truly overwhelmed with the support I recieved, can’t thank you enough guys.
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The MGA coordinates are in the UTM map projection. UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) is a set of projections which cover the entire earth. You are in Zone 55 South. A map projection converts coordinates on a spherical earth to a flat plane (more convenient for calculations) so there is distortion in direction and distances.
ECEF (Earth Centered Earth Fixed) is a system of spherical coordinates in XYZ format.
The coordinates in your Excel worksheet donƒ??t look like either of those. You would need to try to find out how they were derived.
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Adi17 thanks for your last post. It clears things up.
MGA = Map Grid Australia
GDA = Geocentric Datum Australia
Now with geeoddmike post above and Bill93 post on the 1st page you can now work through your problem. Use geeoddmike
1st link. Read both his 1st link and Bill93 post on page 1.
Taking your post of the Lat, Long of Lat. = 37 54 17.91383S and Long. of 145 05 38.94994E you will get the ;
Zone 55, Hemisphere South, Easting 332448.373 and Northing of 5803015.645
Please Note the program print-out does not specify the units of the coord. but it metre
Does this help?
JOHN NOLTON
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@john-nolton Adi17 is trying to convert a grid coordinate to lat/long. A grid coordinate that doesnƒ??t look like any of the Australian projections published on the internet. The coordinates on the left side of his screenshot from Excel are the ones he is trying to convert. Without more information it is impossible to do.
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Posted by: @dave-karoly
@john-nolton Adi17 is trying to convert a grid coordinate to lat/long. A grid coordinate that doesnƒ??t look like any of the Australian projections published on the internet. The coordinates on the left side of his screenshot from Excel are the ones he is trying to convert. Without more information it is impossible to do.
Dave K. Adi17 has some coord. that came from someplace which he did not understand (his very 1st post); The X value did not look good to me and I asked for more information.This Adi17 gave us. Now on page 2 (just above) he gives us 4 sets of coord. that he is trying to understand. His first is X: 145.09417 and Y: -37.90497 (This he calls Lat long in DD) (here I thing it should not be X and Y but label them as Lat. and Long). We can convert that set to deg. min. sec. as;
Lat -37.90497 D.D = -37d 54m 17.892 s and Long. 145.09417 D.D = 145d 05m 39.012 s. Now this is close to his value he gives on the next entry below of Lat Long in DMS he has Lat: 37d 54m 17.91172s South and Lon: 145d 5m 38.95825s E.
Ok now I took his Lat/Long of his very 1st post of 37-54-17.91383 South and 145-05-38.94994 E and transformed them to Zone 55 south and got Easting of 332448.373 and a Northing of 5803015.645. I did this for 2 reasons; 1st to show that in his very 1st post he gave us some wrong coord. and 2nd to show Ari17 that if you convert (transform) from Lat/Long what the coord. will be. Which just happen to be close to his MGA zone 55 (GDA 1994) and his MGA zone 55 (GDA 2020). If you transform from Lat/Long to x/y coord. you sure can transform from from x & y to Lat/Long by using geeoddmike 1st link. Since he is trying to learn I am leaving it up to Adi17 to do this and get back to us if he needs anymore help.
JOHN NOLTON
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