Converting Degrees into a co-ordinate system!

I am working on an offshore wind farm (a group of wind turbines), for which the owner has provided me the latitudes and the longitudes. I have to estimate the location of each turbine in a 2-D plane with 'x' and 'y' value.

Will the link below be appropriate for estimating the same? I can locate the center point of the wind farm in latitudes and longitudes. Further, taking the center X and center Y as the reference = (0,0). And looping over the entire fleet of turbines, I can estimate the value of each of them in Azimuthal plane.

Is my logic correct?

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/28848-spherical-to-azimuthal-equidistant

[Geoff Hayes]

Hi Ashish - Your logic sounds correct and the function comments seem to support what you have in mind.

In the past, when I've had to do something similar, I would use the Vincenty algorithm to compute the range and bearing of a point (latitude and longitude of (say) a wind turbine) from a reference position (latitude and longitude of the centre of a farm). This range and bearing can then be translated into an (x,y) position relative to the centre (0,0). It is computationally more expensive than the above, making certain assumptions about the earth (i.e. not spherical).

These algorithms can also be found on the MATLAB file exchange: vincenty code. Just look for the one titled "Vectorized geodetic distance and azimuth on the WGS84 earth ellipsoid".

There probably won't be much (if any) of a difference between this and your suggestion (with respect to the found coordinates). Just an alternative for interest's sake.

Geoff

[Ashish]

Thanks Geoff for the alternative method as well confirming my above written logic.