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Essentially, we have 3 main categories of elevation references: Ellipsoidal Height. Geoid Height. Orthometric Height. The Ellipsoidal Height (h) is the difference of the vertical distance between a point on the Earth's Surface and the ellipsoid.
What is the difference between the ellipsoid, mean sea level, geoid, geoid height, and orthometric height? Here's everything to know.
The difference is usually greater in mountainous regions where level surfaces exhibit much greater local warping due to more pronounced changes in local gravity. The orthometric height is determined by the distance along the plumb line from the reference surface (Geoid) to the point.
Geoid heights are used to convert ellipsoidal heights to orthometric heights, which are used in land surveying and topographic mapping. Ellipsoids are used as a reference surface for GPS coordinates and as a basis for geodetic datums.
Luckily this can be done with a simple formula that uses information from both geoid and ellipsoid models: Ellipsoid height - Geoid height = Orthometric height. The ellipsoid height is the difference between the earth ellipsoid and your chosen coordinate on the Earth’s surface.
The traditional, orthometric height (H) is the height above an imaginary surface called the geoid, which is determined by the earth's gravity and approximated by MSL. The signed difference between the two heights—the difference between the ellipsoid and geoid—is the geoid height (N).
The orthometric height (symbol H) is the vertical distance along the plumb line from a point of interest to a reference surface known as the geoid, the vertical datum that approximates mean sea level.
Ellipsoidal height measures the distance above or below the reference ellipsoid, while orthometric height measures elevation relative to the geoid. The two heights can differ significantly depending on local gravitational forces and terrain features.
Ellipsoidal height is the vertical distance between the GNSS antenna and the surface of the rugby ball. Advantages: the ellipsoid model is really simple, many GNSS receivers use the same model. Disadvantages: ellipsoidal height can have huge errors (>50m) compared to real height above mean sea level.
Geoid height (N) is the offset value between the reference geoid and the ellipsoid models. Orthometric height (H) —AKA the one you really care about— is the distance between a point on the Earth’s surface and the geoid.