SPHEROIDAL GEODESICS, REFERENCE SYSTEMS, AND LOCAL GEOMETRY

A discussion of the geodesic on the oblate spheroid reference ellipsoid is given with formulae of geodetic accuracy second order in the flattening, distance and azimuths for the noniterative direct and inverse solutions over the hemispheroid, requiring no root extraction and no tabular data except 8-place tables of the natural trigonometric functions. Forms are presented for use with any ellipsoid of reference and the formulae are adaptable to high speed electronic computers. Instructions for use of the forms in desk computations are given with the parameters for ten known ellipsoids of reference and the radii of spherical approximations. A discussion is included of the computation of a long reference line in stations and of reference systems in the vicinity of a station as may be useful in oceanography, seismology, or other geophysical disciplines.