grid2latlong {SpatialEpi}

Convert Coordinates from Grid to Latitude/Longitude

Description

Convert geographic coordinates from Universal Transverse Mercator system to Latitude/Longitude.

Usage

grid2latlong(input)

Arguments

input

A data frame with columns named x and y of the UTM coordinates to convert or an ⁠n x 2⁠ matrix of grid coordinates or an object of class SpatialPolygons (See SpatialPolygons-class)

Details

Longitude/latitudes are not a grid-based coordinate system: latitudes are equidistant but the distance between longitudes varies.

Value

Either a data frame with the corresponding longitude and latitude, or a SpatialPolygons object with the coordinates changed.

Note

Rough conversion of US lat/long to km (used by GeoBUGS): (see also forum.swarthmore.edu/dr.math/problems/longandlat.html). Radius of earth: r = 3963.34 (equatorial) or 3949.99 (polar) mi = 6378.2 or 6356.7 km, which implies: km per mile = 1.609299 or 1.609295 a change of 1 degree of latitude corresponds to the same number of km, regardless of longitude. arclength=rtheta, so the multiplier for coord y should probably be just the radius of earth. On the other hand, a change of 1 degree in longitude corresponds to a different distance, depending on latitude. (at N pole, the change is essentially 0. at the equator, use equatorial radius. Perhaps for U.S., might use an "average" latitude, 30 deg is roughly Houston, 49deg is most of N bdry of continental 48 states. 0.5(30+49)=39.5 deg. so use r approx 6378.2sin(51.5)

Author(s)

Lance A. Waller

Examples

coord <- data.frame(rbind(
# Montreal, QC
c(-6414.30, 5052.849),
# Vancouver, BC
c(-122.6042, 45.6605)
))

grid2latlong(coord)