Comparative Analysis of Three Geodetic Datum Transformation Software for Application between WGS84 and Minna Datums

Since positions are computed on the local ellipsoids adopted for geodetic computation in various countries and as some of the geographic positions of the reference/control stations in Nigeria were determined on the WGS 84 ellipsoid, this paper has comparatively analyzed three geodetic datum transformation software with a view to determining which of them is most suitable for transformation between WGS 84 and Minna datums. The positions of five points obtained from the processing of GNSS observations using Compass post processing software were used. The WGS 84 geographic coordinates were transformed and converted to rectangular coordinates on the Minna datum using Columbus, AllTrans and GeoCalc software. The transformed and converted coordinates of the points were compared with the rectangular coordinates of the points obtained with Compass software to determine which of the software is most suitable for application between WGS 84 and Minna datums. The comparison results show that Columbus and AllTrans software are more suitable for transformation between WGS84 and Minna datums