Global cartesian coordinate system

 Hello,

we need to export our georeferenced model in some cartesian coordinate system, which uses meters as units and also exist explicit transformation from this system to WGS84.

Our application get model in cartesian coordinates in meters in Unity and provide some calculation of inspection trajectory waypoints, which should be exported in WGS84. Currently I am using matlab to calculate transformation from local euclidian system to WGS84 based on GCP exported in both systems.

Unity cannot work on model exported in WGS84 directly, because this system is spherical and we utilize cartesian planner.

I was looking through huge database of coordinate systems implemented in RC, but I did not find any suitable. Ideal for me will be some kind of global ECEF (Earth centered, Earth fixed) cartesian system, but I cannot find this kind of system in your database.

Second question is maybe a request for feature.

I am missing some axis orientation visualization of local coordinate system in 3D view, so I don’t know how the model is oriented locally or how grid is oriented untill I export model and open it in some 3D viewer.

There are also no possibilities to rotate or translate model accurately (no with mouse, but by some commands with numbers e.g. turn model around x axis by 90deg.)

There is no way how to set up position and orientation of georeferenced model in local coordinate system accurately. For example I wish to have my model in local cartesian system with origin in specified GPS location and for example oriented in NED (North East Down) manner or at least see some transformation matrix of the system to some global one (ECEF best).

Hello ,

currently we do not have such coordinate system in our database.

Thank you for your feature request, could you please post it to section Community -  Feature requests so we can easily look up for it in the future?

Thank you

Thank you for answer, but there is also second question, which was not covered.

Is there any possibility currently in RC to export or find out the transformation of the local euclidian system into georeferenced system? This must be present in RC internally to be able to export model in some geospatial system, but it looks like it is not accessible from outside and I have to calculate it again outside the system based on export of GC points pairs in both systems.

Tomas, I have exactly the same request as your second question. Its crucial to know local system origo location in geoferenced system coordinates, and that data should be in modelname.fbx.rcinfo -file. Did you create feature request out of this ?

 

 

I have a hack for this, it’s convoluted but it works

export your model in grid plane coordinates to generate the rcinfo

e.g. export:

    model1.obj

you will also get:

    model1.obj.rcinfo

 

create an obj file named “origin.obj” in a text editor with the following line

v 0 0 0

rename model1.obj.rcinfo to origin.obj.rcinfo

make sure origin.obj and origin.obj.rcinfo are both in the same folder

then back inside of RC Capture in the mesh model tab, “import model” and import origin.obj.

unfortunately since it has only a single vertex at 0,0,0 you won’t see anything at all.

it will import as Model1 (or the next numbered model if there are already models), I rename this to “Origin000”

with this model selected, again export an obj.  This time however, be sure to turn off texture and color exporting, and CRITICALLY remember to change from “gridplane” to “project output” – this will export your origin (0,0,0) in the project output coordinate system - as long as everything went correctly.

 

– I realize this is 4-5 years old, but I came here looking for a less convoluted way of doing this, and have yet to find one.

to summarize:

  1. export your model from rc in gridplane coordinates to get rcinfo file
  2. make obj file with 0,0,0 coordinate, and call it origin.obj
  3. rename the rcinfo file to origin.obj.rcinfo
  4. import the origin.obj into the same component
  5. rename the imported model to origin000
  6. export origin000 as obj no vertex normals, or textures, and be sure to use PROJECT OUTPUT.

resulting obj will have gps coordinates lon, lat, alt. (in my use using GPS(WGS 84))