OSGridConverter 0.1.1

Library to convert co-ordinates between the (UK) Ordnance Survey National Grid and latitude/longitude

Description

This package allowd the user to manipulate co-ordinates on the Earth’s surface in the two major co-ordinate systems: latitude / longitude measured in degrees, and cartographic systems, measured in eastings and northings, based on a local ellipsoidal approximation to the Earth’s geoid.

In particular, it provides tools for processing coordinates (of the form AB 12345 12345) based on the National Grid, defined by the UK Ordnance Survey. For more information, see the Ordnance Survey’s National Grid FAQ page.

The package provides basic functions to convert latitude / longitude to the National Grid and vice versa. However, underneath this is a comprehensive system for mapping, and transforming between different co-ordinate systems, including those for the UK, the Republic of Ireland, France, North America, and Japan.

Simple Conversion

OSGridConverter.**latlong2grid**(latitude, longitude, tag = ‘WGS84’)

Converts from latitude / longitude to an OS Grid Reference.

latitude:

The latitude of the point, expressed in decimal degrees North

longitude:

The longitude of the point, expressed in decimal degrees East

tag:

The name of the datum used in the conversion; default is WGS84, referring to the standard datum used by Ordnance Survey

Return value is an OSGridReference object. For the purpose of simple conversions, what matters is that, of g is such an object, then g.E and g.N are respectively its easting and northing, expressed in metres, and str(g) returns the formatted National Grid reference.

Example:

>>> from OSGridConverter import latlong2grid
>>> g=latlong2grid(52.657977,1.716038)
>>> (g.E,g.N)
(651408, 313177)
>>> str(g)
'TG 51408 13177'

OSGridConverter.**grid2latlong**(grid, tag = ‘WGS84’)

Converts from an OS Grid Reference to latitude / longitude.

grid:

The point to be converted. Either an OSGridReference object, or a string formatted as an Ordnance Survey grid reference, e.g. ‘TG 51408 13177’

tag:

The name of the mapping datum used in the conversion; default is WGS84, referring to the standard datum used by Ordnance Survey

Return value is a LatLong object. For the purpose of simple conversions, what matters is that, of l is such an object, then l.latitude is its latitude expressed oin decimal degrees North, and g.longitude is its longitude expressed in decimal degrees East.

Example[#]_:

>>> from OSGridConverter import grid2latlong
>>> l=grid2latlong('TG 51408 13177')
>>> (l.latitude,l.longitude)
(52.65798005789814, 1.7200761111093394)

OSGridConverter.**Tags**

A list of strings: names of the standing mapping Data that the package is aware of and can convert between. Its members are the valid values that can be used in the tag field of the conversion functions.

Tag	Details
WSG84	UK
OSGB36	Former UK standard (replaced by WGS84)
ED50	UK; used for oil and gas exploration
Irl1975	Republic of Ireland
NTF	France
TokyoJapan	Japan
NAD83	North America; very similar to WGS84

For more information (and more examples of mapping Data) see the Wikipedia page on Geodetic Datum.

[1]

Conversion from lat / long to grid and then back to lat / long generally does not end up with the original values. This is due to a combination of internal rounding errors, plus the fact that the National Grid resolves points to 10m x 10m squares. In the examples above, the before and after latitudes differ by approx. 1.0e-5 and the longitudes by approx. 3.0e-3; this is typical.