[R-sig-Geo] from gps-coordinates to euclidean coordinates

[Barry Rowlingson]

On Sat, Jan 15, 2011 at 8:34 PM, Quets Jan <Jan.Quets at ua.ac.be> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> is there an R function which can transform gps-coordinates to euclidean coordinates,
>
> given that,
>
> a) the earth's curvature can be neglected (eg. all points lie withing 10km from each other)

 Neglecting earth's curvature depends not only on the range of the
data, but also on how precise and accurate your measurements are. If
you are working to some small fraction of a cm, you might need the
consider the curvature of the earth over a 10km region.

 You might think this would never happen in the real world at this
scale, but engineers building suspension bridges have to take into
account the fact that the tops of suspension towers are further apart
than the bottoms, because of the earth's curvature, for a bridge of
the order of a few km!

 I'm just having a pedantic Sunday :)

Barry