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dm2degrees

Convert degrees-minutes to degrees

Description

example

angleInDegrees = dm2degrees(DM) converts angles from degrees-minutes representation to values in degrees which may include a fractional part (sometimes called “decimal degrees”).

Examples

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dm = [ ...
      30  44.78012; ...
     -82  39.90825; ...
       0 -17.12345; ...
       0  14.82000];
format long g
angleInDegrees = dm2degrees(dm)
angleInDegrees = 4×1

          30.7463353333333
               -82.6651375
        -0.285390833333333
                     0.247

Input Arguments

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Angle in degrees-minutes representation, specified as an n-by-2 real-valued matrix. Each row specifies one angle, with the format [D M]:

  • D contains the “degrees” element and must be integer-valued.

  • M contains the “minutes” element and may have a fractional part. The absolute value of M must be less than 60.

For an angle that is positive (north latitude or east longitude) or equal to zero, all elements in the row must be nonnegative. For a negative angle (south latitude or west longitude), the first nonzero element in the row must be negative and the remaining value, if any, is nonnegative.

Output Arguments

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Angle in degrees, returned as an n-element column vector. The kth element corresponds to the kth row of DM.

Algorithms

For an input row with value [D M], with integer-valued D and real M, the output value will be

SGN * (abs(D) + abs(M)/60)
where SGN is 1 if D and M are both nonnegative and -1 if the first nonzero element of [D M] is negative. An error results if a nonzero D is followed by a negative M.

Version History

Introduced in R2007a