Transformo

Transformo is a generalized software package for estimating geodetic transformation parameters and models.

Transformo seeks to provide a framework that lets the user focus on determining the best transformation model. To achieve that, the burden of reading coordinate data from various sources, (re)implementing algorimths and delivering the results in a useful an accessable form has been removed.

Rationale

The rationale behind Transformo is to create a framework that removes the tedious work of reading input data and presenting the results after transformation parameters has been determined. In particular, this approch is meant to be a service to researchers that develop new for methods geodetic coordinate transformations, as they can focus on the core algorithms and not the supporting scaffolding.

Problem

The main problem Transformo tries to solve can be presented on the idealized form

Where \(x\) and \(y\) are the source and target coordinates, \(f\) is a transformation model and \(\beta\) is the parameters for the chosen model.

The real world is rarely simple so a more realistic form would be

Where \(r\) is the transformation residuals.

The primary function of Transformo is to provide a set of parameters \(\beta\) that minimizesthe residual \(r\). In some cases that might involve a transformation model consisting of several steps:

With transformo we can easily specify the \(x\), \(y\) and \(f_1\), \(f_2\), and \(f_3\) using the built-in constructs, which leaves only the parameters, \(\beta_1\), \(\beta_2\) and \(\beta_3\), to be determined. Transformo will do that based on the specified model and present the results in a suitable format.