I've recently come across the semicircle unit that is used to describe a latitude and longitude using the maximum precision allowed by a 32-bit number. The conversion here is given as
degrees = semicircles * ( 180 / 2^31 )
semicircles = degrees * ( 2^31 / 180 )
However it doesn't explain if this should be used differently for latitude since the maximum allowed number of semicircles is 2^31, and if you substitute this into the equation you get the answer "180 degrees", but latitude only goes up to 90.
Would a different conversion between latitude be used instead? Such as:
degrees = semicircles * ( 90 / 2^31 )
semicircles = degrees * ( 2^31 / 90 )
If so then you wouldn't be using the 'semicircle' as a unit for latitude, more like a quarter circle in this case.
Has anybody else come across this issue?