The SDL Component Suite is an industry leading collection of components supporting scientific and engineering computing. Please visit the SDL Web site for more information....


Home GeoPack GeoBasics Procedures and Functions RecipFlattening
See also: GeoEllEccSquared, EllipsoidMinAxFlat 

RecipFlattening

Unit: SDL_geobasics
Class: none
Declaration: [1] function RecipFlattening (Ellipsoid: TGeoEllipsoid): double;
[2] function RecipFlattening (SemiMajorAx, SemiMinorAx: double): double;
[3] function RecipFlattening (SqrEcc: double): double;

The function RecipFlattening calculates the reciprocal flattening (1/f) of an ellipsoid:

1/f = a/(a-b)

with a = semimajor axis, and b = semiminor axis.

Version [1] calculates it from the ellipsoid given by the parameter Ellipsoid, version [2] calculates the reciprocal flattening from the lengths of the semimajor and semiminor axes (parameters SemiMajorAx and SemiMinorAx), and version [3] computes it from the squared eccentriticy SqrEcc.

Hint: Please note that in order to avoid problems with an infinite return value the function RecipFlattening returns a zero value for perfect spheres (which actually have an infinite reciprocal flattening)


Last Update: 2023-Feb-06