Geoprocessing with Python

Chapter 8. Using spatial reference systems

This chapter covers

• Understanding spatial reference systems
• Transforming data using OSR
• Transforming data using pyproj
• Great-circle calculations using pyproj

Most people are familiar with the concept of using latitude and longitude to specify a location on the earth’s surface. Would you be surprised to learn that many other coordinate systems are also used, and that these different spatial reference systems are used for different purposes? To make things even more complicated, the earth isn’t a perfect sphere, and multiple models, called datums, are used to represent the planet’s shape. Given this, coordinates from any system, including latitude and longitude, aren’t absolute—a set of coordinates ...