Natural Area Code

Natural Area Code

The Natural Area Code (or Universal Address) is a proprietary geocode system for identifying an area anywhere on the Earth, or a volume of space anywhere around the Earth. The use of thirty alphanumeric characters instead of only ten digits makes a NAC shorter than its numerical latitude/longitude equivalent.

Contents

Two-dimensional system

Instead of numerical longitudes and latitudes, a grid with 30 rows and 30 columns - each cell denoted by the numbers 0-9 and the twenty consonants of the Latin alphabet - is laid over the flattened globe. A NAC cell (or block) can be subdivided repeatedly into smaller NAC grids to yield an arbitrarily small area, subject to the ±1 m limitations of the World Geodetic System (WGS) data of 1984.

A NAC represents an area on the earth -- the longer the NAC, the smaller the area (and thereby, location) represented. An eight or ten character NAC can uniquely specify every building, house, or fixed object in the world. An eight-character NAC specifies an area no larger than 25 metres by 50 metres, while a ten-character NAC cell is no larger than 0.8 metres by 1.6 metres.

Using a base 30 positional numeral system, NAC uses an alternate method which excludes vowels and avoids potential confusion between "0" (zero) and "O" (capital "o"), and "1" (one) and "I" (capital "i"):

Decimal 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Base 30 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 B C D F G
 
Decimal 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
Base 30 H J K L M N P Q R S T V W X Z

For example, the ten-character NAC for the centre of the city of Brussels is HBV6R RG77T.

Extension to three dimensions

The full NAC system provides a third coordinate: altitude. This coordinate is the arctangent of the altitude, relative to the Earth's radius, and scaled so that the zero point (000...) is at the centre of the Earth, the midpoint (H00...) is the local radius of the geoid, i.e. the Earth's surface, and the endpoint (ZZZ...) is at infinity.

For example, the three-dimensional NAC for the centre of Brussels, at ground level, is HBV6R RG77T H0000.

See also

External links


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Area code 867 — is the area code for the three Canadian territories in the Arctic far north.+1 867 was created on October 21, 1997 from portions of two existing Canadian area codes. It has the largest land area of any area code in the North American Numbering… …   Wikipedia

  • Area code 315 — is a telephone area code in upstate New York. It stretches from west of Syracuse to Little Falls, north to the Canadian border, east to Massena and south to near Cortland.New York State regulators announced that area code 315 is projected to… …   Wikipedia

  • Natural Bridge, New York —   CDP   Church in Natural Bridge, NY …   Wikipedia

  • Natural Bridge, Alabama —   Town   …   Wikipedia

  • Natural Dam, Arkansas —   Unincorporated community   …   Wikipedia

  • Natural language user interface — Natural Language User Interfaces (LUI) are a type of computer human interface where linguistic phenomena such as verbs, phrases and clauses act as UI controls for creating, selecting and modifying data in software applications. In interface… …   Wikipedia

  • Natural Bridge — Natural Bridge, NY U.S. Census Designated Place in New York Population (2000): 392 Housing Units (2000): 174 Land area (2000): 1.390393 sq. miles (3.601101 sq. km) Water area (2000): 0.000000 sq. miles (0.000000 sq. km) Total area (2000):… …   StarDict's U.S. Gazetteer Places

  • Natural burial — is a process by which the body of a deceased person is interred in the soil in a manner that does not inhibit decomposition and allows the body to recycle naturally. It is seen as an alternative to contemporary Western burial methods. Contents 1… …   Wikipedia

  • Code Geass — Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion First Code Geass DVD volume released in Japan. コードギアス 反逆のルルーシュ (Kōdo Giasu: Hangyaku no Rurūshu) …   Wikipedia

  • Natural Bridge, AL — U.S. town in Alabama Population (2000): 28 Housing Units (2000): 14 Land area (2000): 0.420756 sq. miles (1.089754 sq. km) Water area (2000): 0.000000 sq. miles (0.000000 sq. km) Total area (2000): 0.420756 sq. miles (1.089754 sq. km) FIPS code:… …   StarDict's U.S. Gazetteer Places

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”