3 ms·

In my opinion, a big disavantage of MGRS is that it is based on UTM. These days nobody uses UTM and UTM is hard to grasp if all you are used to is lat/lon coord

by phicoh 8y ago

In my opinion, a big disavantage of MGRS is that it is based on UTM. These days nobody uses UTM and UTM is hard to grasp if all you are used to is lat/lon coordinates. So the clear advantage of Plus Codes over MGRS is that it is based on lat/lon

Waterluvian 8y ago
Nobody uses UTM? Whaaaat? UTM is widely used in many many geographic endeavours. It was the de-facto standard for almost any analytical work during my master's and I bet still is. When you're dealing with smaller areas than a country or the whole planet, there's a ton of value of using linear units instead of arcs. Once you try to do any meaningful spatial analysis, you're projecting your lat/lng to a linear unit. And UTM is possibly your first choice of projection depending on context.
widforss 8y ago
UTM is widely used and is the standard way of expressing position within many countries, where lat/lon is second-class citizen on everything but phone navigators.
- kiriakasis 8y ago
  I imagine that you wanted to put focus on "second-class", but if we focus on "everything" we would have a compelling argument for lat/lon as a base for a transmission format.
teilo 8y ago
Spherical coordinates systems are always a tradeoff between usability and simplicity. Plus Codes are certainly simple, easier to calculate, and consistent, but UTM has clear advantages in that it utilizes a Mercator projection adjusted for the contour of the earth, so that distances remain close to scale within any given grid zone… …except in Norway. In Plus Codes, the scaling is lost, and the distance covered by coordinates of equal precision changes dramatically with latitude. Of course, there is also the fact that the mapping ellipsoid used by UTM changed at some point, so old coordinates can be off by up to 200 meters compared to the current mapping. But the current system has been in use long since the advent of GPS, so it's really not an issue.

by phicoh 8y ago

Waterluvian 8y ago

Nobody uses UTM? Whaaaat? UTM is widely used in many many geographic endeavours. It was the de-facto standard for almost any analytical work during my master's and I bet still is. When you're dealing with smaller areas than a country or the whole planet, there's a ton of value of using linear units instead of arcs. Once you try to do any meaningful spatial analysis, you're projecting your lat/lng to a linear unit. And UTM is possibly your first choice of projection depending on context.

widforss 8y ago

UTM is widely used and is the standard way of expressing position within many countries, where lat/lon is second-class citizen on everything but phone navigators.

kiriakasis 8y ago
I imagine that you wanted to put focus on "second-class", but if we focus on "everything" we would have a compelling argument for lat/lon as a base for a transmission format.

teilo 8y ago

Spherical coordinates systems are always a tradeoff between usability and simplicity. Plus Codes are certainly simple, easier to calculate, and consistent, but UTM has clear advantages in that it utilizes a Mercator projection adjusted for the contour of the earth, so that distances remain close to scale within any given grid zone… …except in Norway. In Plus Codes, the scaling is lost, and the distance covered by coordinates of equal precision changes dramatically with latitude. Of course, there is also the fact that the mapping ellipsoid used by UTM changed at some point, so old coordinates can be off by up to 200 meters compared to the current mapping. But the current system has been in use long since the advent of GPS, so it's really not an issue.