The federal mandate is the meter. States are statutorily given the option to use imperial units. If NIST or NGS attempted to mandate meters several states would sue and the agencies would lose. That may happen anyway as federal agencies can only define imperial units in an advisory capacity.
I remain neutral on this and whatever will be done to state plane coordinates in 2022.?ÿ I'm probably less than neutral because I don't care what is finally decided.?ÿ All I need are clear definitions and descriptions of what was done.?ÿ For mineral surveys, the original surveys were referenced to "true north" (usually based on a solar) and distances were measured with steel tapes that varied in length from 100 ft. to 500 ft.?ÿ
It is easier to keep my geodetic-based survey work in a coordinate system that matches the original work so I usually create custom, low distortion projections.?ÿ This allows me to directly compare my measurements to the mineral surveyor's measurements.?ÿ When I'm all done and someone requires my survey in a "standard" 2022 projection, datum and units, I transform my drawing with the press of a button.
I don't care what the NGS or NIST do.?ÿ As long as it is well documented (a given with the NGS), I'm good!?ÿ ?????ÿ
When the 2022 datum comes out, I'll likely conduct a bunch of tests to see what the error magnitudes are for a variety of blunders that an incurious surveyor will most assuredly make.?ÿ With that, I'll have a good idea of their blunder when their coordinates don't match mine.
RIGHT ON Gene!
Don't think twice
Move Ahead.
Don't look back.
?ÿ
I don't care what the NGS or NIST do. As long as it is well documented (a given with the NGS), I'm good!
I'll be d@#med if i'm going to sit idly by and let a a globalist cabal of Davos attending, Soros backed, geomagicians?ÿ initiate some new world order International Foot takeover of american measurement sovereignty.?ÿ
They can have my US Survey Foot when they pry if from my cold dead hands?ÿ?ÿ
The International Foot is the most monstrously conceived Communist plot of our day, they are trying to destroy the purity of the essence of our measurements. You never see a commie use the International Foot, it's the Survey Foot they use and not without good reason.
My understanding is that during the late 1800s and 1st half of the 20th century various English-speaking countries that retained the yard, foot, and inch stopped using their standard yard stored in some vault in their respective capitals as the length measurement standard, and started using the meter bar kept in the very same vaults. In the process, each country came up with its own value of inches per meter. During WWII and the commercial boom that followed, the international interchangeability of parts became increasingly important, and machinists were able to make parts where the disparate inch-per-meter values mattered. So all the countries that still used yards, feet, and inches wanted to settle on one conversion factor for inches per meter, and they did.
By the time survey feet can be ignored, all the executives of all the manufacturers will be dead, and so will their children. I don't think they care about anything that far out.
MathTeacher your old pencil note is correct to the number of digits you show. In the calculation by Prof. Moritz method
( see "Geodetic Reference System 1980", Journal of Geodesy, Vol. 74, issue 1, March 2000, pp. 128-133 (which is also in
the 1980 Bulletin Geodesique)) . The first number you calculate is e^2 (the first eccentricity). From geometrical geodesy
you then calculate f (the flattening of the ellipsoid) and then 1/f. What you have shown above is how NGS calculated
( Incorrectly I might add) 1/f. After some time and at least 4 e-mails back and forth Michael Dennis of NGS
finally got the calculations of 1/f correct (it was like pulling teeth from a live crocodile).
In 1995 I calculated e^2, f, 1/f and other values to 90 decimal places using a computer program called Macsyma but never
published them. I did give the calculations to several of my international friends.
What's really funny is in 2014 R.E. Deakin (you read some of his stuff) published a paper "Eccentricity of the Normal
Ellipsoid" (you can find this on the internet). He gives e^2, f and 1/f to 45 places to the right of the decimal point;
1/f is only good to 41 decimals to the right of the decimal point. Wikipedia has an article "Geodetic Reference System 1980" (2018)
and in there e^2 is given to 45 digits and f to 25 digits just above his references. The Wiki article does give 1/f to the same number
you have in pencil under "Derived geometrical constants (all rounded)" early on in the article. NGS new that there was a difference
between there number and at least the Wiki article but DID NOT look into it till I brought it up.
You can see the derivation of the Moritz equations in Physical Geodesy by W.E. Heiskanen and H. Moritz,
1967
JOHN NOLTON
MathTeacher your old pencil note is correct to the number of digits you show. In the calculation by Prof. Moritz method
( see "Geodetic Reference System 1980", Journal of Geodesy, Vol. 74, issue 1, March 2000, pp. 128-133 (which is also in
the 1980 Bulletin Geodesique)) . The first number you calculate is e^2 (the first eccentricity). From geometrical geodesy
you then calculate f (the flattening of the ellipsoid) and then 1/f. What you have shown above is how NGS calculated
( Incorrectly I might add) 1/f. After some time and at least 4 e-mails back and forth Michael Dennis of NGS
finally got the calculations of 1/f correct (it was like pulling teeth from a live crocodile).
In 1995 I calculated e^2, f, 1/f and other values to 90 decimal places using a computer program called Macsyma but never
published them. I did give the calculations to several of my international friends.
What's really funny is in 2014 R.E. Deakin (you read some of his stuff) published a paper "Eccentricity of the Normal
Ellipsoid" (you can find this on the internet). He gives e^2, f and 1/f to 45 places to the right of the decimal point;
1/f is only good to 41 decimals to the right of the decimal point. Wikipedia has an article "Geodetic Reference System 1980" (2018)
and in there e^2 is given to 45 digits and f to 25 digits just above his references. The Wiki article does give 1/f to the same number
you have in pencil under "Derived geometrical constants (all rounded)" early on in the article. NGS new that there was a difference
between there number and at least the Wiki article but DID NOT look into it till I brought it up.
You can see the derivation of the Moritz equations in Physical Geodesy by W.E. Heiskanen and H. Moritz,
1967
JOHN NOLTON
Probably if it was called the "Mendenhall Foot" or some such rather than the "US Foot" the resistance might be more muted.
Well, this thread sure got legs and went off into the weeds metatarsals again with lots of metacarpal wringing on the two feet (or is that "the two foots?").
So you're saying that NGS got the eccentricity squared wrong? I can see how that could happen given the complexity of Moritz's iterative solution. I'll have to admit to being lazy and starting with the NGS value of the eccentricity squared.
As NGS goes through those old formulas and algorithms, there are likely to be others that are not exactly right but were ok for a lower level of precision.
Congratulations! You've done NGS and the rest of the geodetic community a service.
Fats Waller did a song about the US Survey Foot, "Can't stand you cause your feets too big."
MathTeacher when I looked at the "Procedures for Design and Modification of the State Plane Coordinate System of 2022"
and saw NGS error I tried to alert them. There are 2 names on the paper; CHILDERS.VICKI.ANNETTE on the front
page and on the last page is Michael Dennis. I found Childers phone number through a search of NGS web site, and by the
way its Dr. Childers. So I called and got an answering machine----- no return call. One Month goes by and still no call.
So I call again; still no call back. I do not call or send Michael Dennis anything. Did not like his webnar--bad in places.
I have to go through a state advisor and she got the ball rolling. As I said for a long time they (NGS Michael Dennis)
thought he was correct in his calculations. "THE CONTRARY MAY BE SHOWN" TO NGS AND WAS BY ME.
JOHN NOLTON
Dr. Dennis has noted the lack of publicly-available documentation for state plane development and the process he's overseeing aims at improving that situation. It took persistence on your part to make it work here, but it did work, and that will make it easier for future students of mapping applications.
You've contributed to a better understanding both outside and inside NGS.
Yeah, let's start driving on the left side of the road, too. Why be different?
Had a couple of solid conversations here in Colorado about this with people way smarter than I am.?ÿ There's even talk of Low Distortion Projections (LDP) that would apply to Colorado as it becomes One single state plane.?ÿ Crazy. ?ÿ
Hey, Metric and Keep Left works for us down under, and for a whole pile of former British colonies.
You guys were a colony once, right?
You'd be welcome to rejoin the club 🙂
New Zealand had a LDP that covered the whole country for mapping - the New Zealand Map Grid.
But it was a pain to work with - a power series of complex numbers with eleven factors.
These days we are just using UTM.
There should be three zones to cover the country. But they said we will just use the central one and to heck with the distortions in the far reaches of the western and eastern extents.