Horizontal position representation

A position representation is the parameters used to express a position relative to a reference. Representing position in three dimensions is often done by a Euclidean vector. However, when representing position relative to the Earth it is often more convenient to represent vertical position as altitude or depth, and to use some other parameters to represent horizontal position. There are also several applications where only the horizontal position is of interest, this might e.g. be the case for ships and ground vehicles/cars.

There are several options for horizontal position representations, each with different properties which makes them appropriate for different applications. Latitude/longitude and UTM are common horizontal position representations.

The horizontal position has two degrees of freedom, and thus two parameters are sufficient to uniquely describe such a position. However, similarly to the use of Euler angles as a formalism for representing rotations, using only the minimum number of parameters gives singularities, and thus three parameters are required for the horizontal position to avoid this.

The most common horizontal position representation is latitude and longitude. The parameters are intuitive and well known, and are thus suited for communicating a position to humans, e.g. using a position plot.

However, latitude and longitude should be used with care in mathematical expressions (including calculations in computer programs). The main reason is the singularities at the Poles, which makes longitude undefined at these points. Also near the poles the latitude/longitude grid is highly non-linear, and several errors may occur in calculations that are sufficiently accurate on other locations.

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