The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and NGS have co-issued a Federal Register Notice seeking public comments on their proposal to deem the U.S. Survey foot obsolete in 2022. Comments are due by December 2, 2019.
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Cue Abraham Simpson.
Well let me think about this,...?ÿ Many consider me to be obsolete so why should I quit using it?
James
Seriously, thanks for letting us old obsolete surveyors know.
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I made lots of money in the transition to metric (and that's where I cut my teeth programming LISP and Visual Basic - on someone else's nickle).
Then I made lots of money converting back to US Survey feet.
Now I'll make even more sorting out the problems created by people who are working with both international feet and US Survey feet but don't even know it. I think I'll make more with this one because things will go a lot further before they realize there's a problem.
I'm beginning to feel like an attorney - I profit whenever the client does something stupid - whether or not they win.
I don't see that it's a big deal.?ÿ The only place in surveying it makes a significant difference is in SPC or similar large area projection coordinatess, and then the difference will be mingled with a new datum shift that you have to deal with.
I attended a meeting last week of the local chapter of PSLS (PA Society of Land Surveyors) and our state rep gave a report on how PSLS was participating in the transition to 2022, and he mentioned the international foot. No one reacted, so I asked to speak for a few minutes and I explained what it meant (2 ppm difference, and that matters in state plane coordinate magnitudes), and that people should start putting METADATA on their plans and plats now so that in the future people will know that it is the US Survey Foot being used, and that would avoid confusion 5 or 10 years from now. I mentioned that it makes no difference at all for a lot survey or local survey, but when using state plane coordinates it definitely matters.?ÿNo response, no reaction. Not sure if they all knew exactly what the transition means (doubtful), don't care, or it didn't register.?ÿ
I agree with JKinAK, it is an opportunity to make some money cleaning up after the clueless.?ÿ
Each state defines it's coordinate system, if you work in the X Coordinate System NAD 1983, East Zone you should know X state uses US Survey feet and the survey you are doing is in US feet, the Y Coordinate System is in state Y which defines it's coordinates to be in international feet. It's useful to add US Survey feet to your metadata statement, but it isn't necessary (if you are doing it correctly-----big if).?ÿ
It will be up to each state to re-define it's Coordinate System to international feet when the new system comes out, I can't see why it should matter much, that would be the time to do it since the old and new will be different. But,,,,,,,I can see trouble on the horizon, international feet vs. US survey feet causes problems when they get used incorrectly and those often little shifts can be the worst.?ÿ
I got this in my morning mail: https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USNOAANOS/bulletins/2618240
Yep, it will be a way to make money.
"to avoid confusion"
actually, I believe this will Create (more) Confusion...
...the easily confused "professionals" will not change. They will continue to miss-state the units they are using, if they even know.
The rest of us will have to continue to back figure and determine the units actually used, with yet another possibility.
I worked with both all of my career. Not a big deal if the units were properly stated.
Unfortunately many surveyors never really understood (small minority).
I think using "foot" without actually stating "2020 foot" will compound the existing problem.
So, we will again have to do some analysis and guess which "foot" was intended.
I believe the proper thing to do is provide Full metadata
A better idea would be to quit using SPC, just Lat/Lon.
I prefer a 3-D approach like that of Earl Burkholder see: https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%290733-9453%282009%29135%3A2%2883%29
This is a review of his book by the late Bill Strange, former NGS Chief Geodesist and frequent poster to surveyor boards. I always remember how helpful he was to me at a career transition. With all his accomplishments his ego was well in check. He was a good story teller as well.
When I first heard about this a few weeks back, I was thinking that there is no way that the NGS would ever do something like this.?ÿ Something that I have used all my survey life just can't be taken away like this.?ÿ Then I was really PO'd about some bureaucrat in Washington DC making a major decision on something this important...They just cant do this to us.?ÿ Then I thought maybe we can figure out a way to keep both but not tell anyone about the two different feet.?ÿ Next I sank into pit of sorrow over this loss of the "different" foot.?ÿ Not being able to tell my friends at parties about the USft vs Intlft.?ÿ What a loss.?ÿ Then I thought, you know what "this may not be all that bad".?ÿ No more confusion and after a little while we probably wont even miss the old foot.?ÿ It feels like the 70's all over again.
It's all part of the rich tapestry we call our lives.
Funny how things on RPLS mirror the rest of the world (or is it things in the RotW mirror RPLS??
A job I'm currently dealing with has aspects of the heading image to "Better take another look at the plans", where wrong dimensions have resulted in loss of parking spaces (and a claim going into 6 figures).
It suffers from a variation of your footInt/footUS problem in that the drawings have no indication as to the reference setting out point for the grid and the architect has omitted to note that he has used projection coordinates rather than ground coordinates. Contractors on site at the time the building was erected started off at opposite ends of the site and failed to meet in the middle - OK for open grass, not so good for a steel framed building.
In the process of fudge and refudge ( translation for those in US - perhaps Trump and ReTrump - now duck!) the building ended up being moved hence the loss of parking spaces. When I was there last week they were cramming three new cars into every two parking bays.
No. it doesn't matter which foot (or projection) you use AS LONG AS YOU CLEARLY SAY WHICH and are consistent, otherwise chaos ensues.
But, but, but, you work in metric heaven, you can't possibly have measurement unit problems.
No, I just have uneducated client problems!
Actually it isn't all metric - anything pre-1970'ish tends to be in feet, earlier stuff in chains and rods. Explaining to an architect or an engineer that the original plan is to a scale of 1:792 can be hard going. In this area we have a lot of land that was bought up by the early railways as they were built and the surplus then sold off for village housing, so all the plans were scaled at One Inch to the Chain and dimensioned in Feet (the Imperial Version).
Unlike yourselves, we have lots of small fields. Trying to explain why the field widths are often in multiples of 5.03 metres (5.5 yards) is like knocking your head against a brick wall. Throw in a scale factor ("what's that?" says the architect) and there's fun for all the family.
At least we don't have the extremes of weather (not that often anyway - I can relate to the comments being posted in the last couple of days, but only very occasionally to those extents - and what's all this F rather than C after the numbers?)
The Orange County Chapter of California Land Surveyors Association posted this graphic on their Facebook page yesterday.
I can't attest to the accuracy... but
That sounds like so much fun. I can imagine what it's like, today, since it's close to Halloween, I'm driving a stake through the last calibrated file I ever hope to use. It's been sitting out there since the late 90's. I can't wait to blow that thing up and never see it again.
Just out of interest, what happens where two jurisdictions using different foot definitions meet? Or do you organise things such that no property crosses the state line. We don't have that problem over here as property ownership can extend over County or even National (eg. Scotland/England) boundaries.
The coordinate systems are quite different, the issue of US vs. International feet is swamped by the difference in the systems. There can be 3 degrees of rotation and very different scale factors so either the state line creates a demarcation line for the surveys or one system is extended into border state. Projects such as an interstate highway will usually terminate each direction along the state line with two different systems controlling, for private boundaries there is generally a state system picked that controls across the line, if state plane is used.
As you say, property boundaries do not cross State lines. There may be cases where one entity owns adjoining properties on both sides of such a line. But they would be considered discrete parcels. I have seen cases where single properties span county lines but this is rare.
Nevertheless there are circumstances where a project spans state plane zone boundaries, and sometimes those zones use different foot definitions. The solution is to just do the whole project using one zone or the other.