AW: [Mapserver-users] RE: latitude and longitude

[Arnulf Christl]

Hi,
this contribution is just (hopefully helpful) background noise about
coordinate communication:

In Germany we often have a problem of mixing up x and y coordinates between
the-common-GIS-hacker and survey engineers. Survey engineers use the writing
notation (y, x) to code coordinates which tends to be rather confusion for
us "normal" GIS hackers.
Therefore if we (dare to) talk to survey engineers we usually say
"Rechtswert", which could be translated into "right value". What we mean is
"easting", "x" or "Längendgrad" (longitude).
We say "Hochwert" which translates into "up-value" and what we mean is
"northing" or "y" or "Breitengrad" (latitude).
Another problem is that (x, y) coordinates are commonly mixed up by german
talking when a "Latitude" or "Longitude" is requested. We are not used to
these terms in day to day work.
It is a very common potential error for any european reading english
documentation and trying to implement demo data or getting anything to run.

At least most of us around here use "north" as the top for our maps, no
misunderstanding there...

Cheers,
Arnulf

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: mapserver-users-admin at lists.gis.umn.edu
[mailto:mapserver-users-admin at lists.gis.umn.edu]Im Auftrag von Ed
McNierney
Gesendet: Freitag, 14. März 2003 16:34
An: havard.tveite at ikf.nlh.no; mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
Betreff: RE: [Mapserver-users] RE: latitude and longitude


Håvard -

What exactly do you mean?  Do Norwegians like maps where East is up at the
top?  Or are you talking about projected coordinate systems, rather than
latitude and longitude?

	- Ed

Ed McNierney
President and Chief Mapmaker
TopoZone.com / Maps a la carte, Inc.
73 Princeton Street, Suite 305
North Chelmsford, MA  01863
ed at topozone.com
(978) 251-4242

-----Original Message-----
From: Havard Tveite [mailto:havard.tveite at ikf.nlh.no]
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2003 10:26 AM
To: mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
Subject: Re: [Mapserver-users] RE: latitude and longitude


In Europe (in Norway, anyway) the tradition is to use x for
north and y for east.
I don't like it, but it is difficult to convince the surveying
and geodesy people to change to the more intuitive(?) x for
east and y for north.

Ed McNierney wrote:
> If you are working with a map in a "geographic" projection (where you
assume latitude and longitude make a rectangular grid) then the longitude
(east-west) is usually the X coordinate, and latitude is usually the Y
coordinate.  There's no reason you couldn't turn the Earth so the equator
was a vertical line up the middle of your map, but people just don't seem to
do it that way.
>
> 	- Ed
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ryanne cruz [mailto:ryanne.cruz at up.edu.ph]
> Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2003 10:36 AM
> To: mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
> Subject: [Mapserver-users] RE: latitude and longitude
...
> im sorry if this had been asked before and i have read someone post that
when
> you query for x(geom) you are referring to the longitude and y(geom) with
the
> latitude. is this correct? because i am getting very confused!
>
> thanks for all the help. we will soon be uploading our site and i hope
you'll
> have the time to see it. i'll post next time our website.
>
> ryanne

--
Håvard Tveite                       Phone:  +47 64948857
Department of Mapping Sciences      Fax:    +47 64948856
Agricultural University of Norway  http://www.nlh.no/ikf
Hogskoleveien 14, POBox 5034, N-1432 Ås, NORWAY

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