A class representing a geodetic datum.
A geodetic datum consists of a set of reference points on or in the Earth, and a reference {@link Ellipsoid} giving an approximation to the true shape of the geoid.
In order to transform between two geodetic points specified on different datums, it is necessary to transform between the two datums. There are various ways in which this datum conversion may be specified:
- A 3-parameter conversion
- A 7-parameter conversion
- A grid-shift conversion
In order to be able to transform between any two datums, the parameter-based transforms are provided as a transform to the common WGS84 datum. The WGS transforms of two arbitrary datum transforms can be concatenated to provide a transform between the two datums.
Notable datums in common use include {@link #NAD83} and {@link #WGS84}.