dem_geodetic_to_ecef — DEM geodesy op

• Data kinds: none → points (an op determined by its arguments alone — it takes no image or data input)

• Call: import fullseye as fs; fs.ledger.dem_geodetic_to_ecef(lat_deg, lon_deg, height_m=0.0) (to call the implementation directly, import demops; demops.dem_geodetic_to_ecef(lat_deg, lon_deg, height_m=0.0); from the registry, opsdem.get("dem_geodetic_to_ecef"))

Usage

Geodetic coordinates (latitude, longitude, ellipsoidal height) → Earth-centered Cartesian coordinates ECEF [m].

A right-handed system with origin at the Earth's centre, x toward the prime meridian in the equatorial plane, y at 90 degrees east longitude, and z at the North Pole. The entry point when terrain is to be handled in "coordinates seen from the Earth's centre".

Computed on the WGS84 ellipsoid, not a sphere —— a spherical approximation deviates by up to 21 km around 45 degrees latitude (because the polar radius is shorter than the equatorial radius).

Args:

lat_deg / lon_deg: latitude and longitude [degrees]. Arrays allowed (same shape).

height_m: ellipsoidal height [m]. Scalar or array.

Returns:

(..., 3) ECEF coordinates [m].

Detailed usage guide

• dem_terrain_analysis family guide

References (sample data, literature)

• Sample-data catalog (download URLs / licences) — 2-D uses skimage.data (BSD/public domain) plus synthetic images; 3-D lists download URLs for real data sources (Stanford, PDS, …).

• Operator provenance and references — the sources of the research/methods this op family came from.

• The canonical algorithm (author, year) and its uses are named in the family usage guide above.

Runnable examples (verified samples that actually call this op)

• dem_geodesy_tour — py -3.11 examples/dem_geodesy_tour.py

• poc_geodetic_benchmarks_real — py -3.11 examples/poc_geodetic_benchmarks_real.py

• poc_geodetic_height_frames — py -3.11 examples/poc_geodetic_height_frames.py

Ops the type connects to (they accept points as input)

dem_ecef_to_geodetic · dem_geodetic_from_enu

Same category (geodesy)

dem_ecef_to_geodetic · dem_geocentric_grid · dem_earth_curvature_drop · dem_cell_size_webmercator · dem_geodetic_slope · dem_geoid_height · dem_height_frame_convert · dem_height_frame_residual

*Provenance: demops.py — DEM operator registry. This per-op note is generated by tools/opdocs.py md (do not hand-edit).*

© 2026 Kazufumi Furuse — Fullseye operator documentation. Licensed under Apache-2.0.