Latitude and Longitude conversion

2012-12-27

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Question

I need to convert a latitude in ddmm.mmmmm (minutes in 4 decimal places) to ddmm.mmmmmm (minutes in 5 decimal places) format. Is there any good formula to convert this ?

Answer

Sans other information I would recommend following mkk's advice.

If you want to convert "ddmm.mmmmm" (4 decimal places) to "ddmm.mmmmm" (5 decimal places), you should probably just add a zero to the end.

Other methods may appear to give a more satisfactory result by placing a non-zero value in the fifth decimal place. But they cannot add more information than was present in the original number. There is, however, the potential to lose information through loss of significance in mathematical calculations.