Google Earth implements coordinate system as defined in the OGC KML 2.2 standard. The vertical component (altitude) is measured from the vertical datum, which is the WGS84 EGM96 Geoid. Typically altitude can be thought of as a measure in meters above sea level (MSL) for absolute height.
Which datum does google earth use?
To answer the question specifically, Google Earth uses a Mercator projection based on a spherical datum (in ESRI parlance, datum = “Geographic Coordinate System; GCS”) that is a modification of the WGS84 datum. The “true” WGS84 datum is ellipsoidal (GRS80 ellipsoid) and geocentric; only the geocentric aspect is common to both.
This of course begs the inquiry “Which datum is used by google earth?”
What vertical datum is used in Google Earth Google Earth implements coordinate system as defined in the OGC KML 2.2 standard., and http://portal., and opengeospatial., and org/files/? Artifact_id=27810 The vertical component (altitude) is measured from the vertical datum, which is the WGS84 EGM96 Geoid.
Google uses WGS 84 Web Mercator as its coordinate system. In ESRI it is under geographic coordinate systems. What elevation datum is Google Earth?
This begs the inquiry “What type of map projection does Google Earth use?”
One frequent answer is, google Earth (also Google Maps and Microsoft Virtual Earth) use a Mercator projection based on a spherical datum (in ESRI parlance, datum = “Geographic Coordinate System; GCS”) that is a modification of the WGS84 datum . Beside this, what coordinate system does Google Maps use?
What is the datum of a map projection?
The datum is simply the type of map projection and of course they are all distorted having placed a sphere on a flat piece of paper or computer screen. If you do not use the same datum the distortion is not the same and so the coordinates are differant.