From the course: Real-World GIS

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Using geoids, spheroids, and datums in GIS

Using geoids, spheroids, and datums in GIS - ArcGIS Pro Tutorial

From the course: Real-World GIS

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Using geoids, spheroids, and datums in GIS

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- [Narrator] Now let's explore the concepts of Geoids, Spheroids, and Datums. The earth is irregular in shape because of its rotation and its geology, so it has undulations and irregularity, even though it's round in shape. Geodetic scientists have tried to model the surface of the earth and they have created the geoid, which is an irregular oval or egg-shaped surface that tries to approximate the surface of the Earth. The geoid, offers a nice, smoother surface to work with when trying to model the earth, especially in a computerized environment, but because the geoid is also an irregular shape it's difficult to use in a mathematical sense for modeling earth. Therefore, geodetic scientists have used the ellipsoid to approximate the geoid, so the ellipsoid approximates the geoid, which approximates the surface of the Earth. The ellipsoid is a very easy model to use, to model the curvature of the Earth and this can be done…

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