Allow coordinates to be entered in degrees-minutes-seconds

Feature Requests
1

Platform(s), such as mobile, website, API, other: website

URLs (aka web addresses) of any pages, if relevant:

Description of need:
I measure coordinates in North Carolina state plane and then convert them to latitude and longitude for iNat. The latitude and longitude are in degrees, minutes, and seconds, but I have to convert them to decimal degrees to enter them into iNat. I wrote the program that converts them, so I could add decimal degrees output, but others may be using devices that output dms, and Wikipedia shows coordinates in dms.

Feature request details:
I measured the forked pine mentioned in my profile as (354178.71389,183735.49753) NC Grid and converted it to 35°22′25.3508″N 81°48′41.5660″W. iNat doesn’t accept this format, so I have to type it into my calculator, hit DMS→, and read the result, which is (35.373709,-81.811546) in decimal degrees. Then I can copy-paste it into iNat.

I’d like to be able to enter the coordinates in degrees-minutes-seconds. This would eliminate the possibility of error when typing coordinates into the calculator and reading them back. During that survey, I set two nails in the field where the horses are; when I came back, they were gone, so I had to set two more nails, measure them with GPS, convert grid to ground on the spot, and enter the coordinates into the total station. In doing so, using this same calculator, I made an error, so I had to recompute the oak coordinates.

Using a minus sign instead of W is fine. Germans use O for east, several Romance languages use O for west, Greeks use Îť for south, but everyone understands plus and minus.

3

It’s always useful to have more than one way to enter location data, but in the meantime for people who need to convert between coordinate systems here are a few resources

Excel sheets for conversion (these links lead to the file directly):

Online batch converter (uses and Excel input):

1 Like
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@phma Remember to vote for your own request.

5

US gov online tool https://alpha.ngs.noaa.gov/NCAT/

2 Likes
6

I think UTM would be a good addition. I wouldn’t add the state plane systems; there are more state plane zones than UTM zones, and they’re used only in the USA. All state plane systems are conformal, and all but one are either Lambert conformal conic (what I use in North Carolina) or transverse Mercator (two zones in Georgia).

7

That’s another good resource.

I’ve also been lazy and simply used Google Earth Pro. Place a point, adjust coordinate system in Preferences, and copy the results as it automatically changes the notation method.

1 Like