Geodesic equations and their numerical solution in Cartesian coordinates on a triaxial ellipsoid

Abstract In this work, the geodesic equations and their numerical solution in Cartesian coordinates on an oblate spheroid, presented by Panou and Korakitis (2017), are generalized on a triaxial ellipsoid. A new exact analytical method and a new numerical method of converting Cartesian to ellipsoidal coordinates of a point on a triaxial ellipsoid are presented. An extensive test set for the coordinate conversion is used, in order to evaluate the performance of the two methods. The direct geodesic problem on a triaxial ellipsoid is described as an initial value problem and is solved numerically in Cartesian coordinates. The solution provides the Cartesian coordinates and the angle between the line of constant λ and the geodesic, at any point along the geodesic. Also, the Liouville constant is computed at any point along the geodesic, allowing to check the precision of the method. An extensive data set of geodesics is used, in order to demonstrate the validity of the numerical method for the geodesic problem. We conclude that a complete, stable and precise solution of the problem is accomplished.