page_title: Geographic coordinate conversion
section_title: Grid-based method
hierarchical_section_title: Geographic coordinate conversion / Datum transformations / Grid-based method
caption_attribution_description: Datum Shift Between NAD27 and NAD83 – The map shows the approximate magnitude (meters) of the total shift between the same set of northing and easting coordinate values in NAD27 and NAD83
context_page_description: In geodesy, conversion among different geographic coordinate systems is made necessary by the different geographic coordinate systems in use across the world and over time. Coordinate conversion is composed of a number of different types of conversion: format change of geographic coordinates, conversion of coordinate systems, or transformation to different geodetic datums. Geographic coordinate conversion has applications in cartography, surveying, navigation and geographic information systems.
  In geodesy, geographic coordinate conversion is defined as translation among different coordinate formats or map projections all referenced to the same geodetic datum. A geographic coordinate transformation is a translation among different geodetic datums. Both geographic coordinate conversion and transformation will be considered in this article.
context_section_description: Grid-based transformations directly convert map coordinates from one (map-projection, geodetic datum) pair to map coordinates of another (map-projection, geodetic datum) pair. An example is the NADCON method for transforming from the North American Datum (NAD) 1927 to the NAD 1983 datum. The High Accuracy Reference Network (HARN), a high accuracy version of the NADCON transforms, have an accuracy of approximately 5 centimeters. The National Transformation version 2 (NTv2) is a Canadian version of NADCON for transforming between NAD 1927 and NAD 1983. HARNs are also known as NAD 83/91 and High Precision Grid Networks (HPGN). Subsequently, Australia and New Zealand adopted the NTv2 format to create grid-based methods for transforming among their own local datums.
  Like the multiple regression equation transform, grid-based methods use a low-order interpolation method for converting map coordinates, but in two dimensions instead of three. The NOAA provides a software tool (as part of the NGS Geodetic Toolkit) for performing NADCON transformations.
caption: Magnitude of shift in position between NAD27 and NAD83 datum as a function of location.
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