Point Mass Method Applied to the Regional Gravimetric Determination of the Geoid

The determination of the local gravity field by means of the point mass inversion method can be performed as an alternative to conventional numerical methods, such as the least-squares collocation. Based on the first derivative of the inverse-distance Newtonian potential for the representation of the gravity anomaly data, it is possible to compute any wavelength component of the geoid in planar approximation with sufficient accuracy. In order to exemplify the theoretical concept, two applications are presented of the computation of two different wavelength components of the geoid, the long wavelength component in a local solution and the short wavelength component in a regional solution. The results are compared with corresponding least-squares collocation solutions, using a global geopotential model to remove and to restore the long wavelength component.