Wisconsin Coordinate Systems Task Force

Current Status:

In late spring (2005) the Wisconsin Land Information Board allocated $35,000 through a Strategic Initiative Grant to support the redesign of the WCCS. Jackson County, the grant recipient, contracted with the geodesist, Al Vonderohe (UW-Madison professor), to do the redesign effort. This work is now complete. In early 2006 the redesign parameters were tested, and documentation of the redesign approach is now available. An accompanying handbook publication to replace the Wisconsin Coordinate Systems Handbook as well as educational workshop materials are currently in the planning stages.
The Task Force continues to meet on an approximately bi-monthly schedule. All meetings are held at the Wisconsin Department of Transportation Building in Madison.

Mission Statement:

The WLIA's Wisconsin Coordinate System Task Force was formed by the State Cartographer's Office in early 2004. The intent in forming the task force was to explore concerns raised by a number of GIS users over apparent errors and inconsistencies in data conversions to and from the Wisconsin County Coordinate System (WCCS). The SCO asked a variety of individuals representing the governmental, academic, and private sectors to serve on the Task Force. The membership determined the task force mission. See the complete mission statement, revised July 2004.

Task Force Documents

NEW!
• WISCRS (Wisconsin Coordinate Reference Systems): Redesign of the WCCS (PDF - 3.87 MB)
  


• Redesign Methodology (pdf)
• Proposal to redesign the WCCS - 12/10/04 (Word doc)
• Task Force Products Matrix (Word doc)
• County Coordinate Test Point Data - NAD 83 (Excel file) - Last posted 15 Aug 2007
• County Coordinate Test Point Data - NAD 27 (Excel file)
• Equations and Parameters for Wisconsin Coordinate Systems, Gerald Mahun, Dec. 2004 (pdf)
• Direct and Inverse Lambert Transformations Based Upon Bomford (1980) (pdf)

Presentations

• WLIA 2006 Annual Conference Presentation (PDF - 680KB)
• WSLS 2006 Annual Institute Presentation (PPT - 1.1 MB)
• UW-Madison Seminar Presentation - "An Overview of the Wisconsin County Coordinate System Redesign Project" (PDF - 415KB)
• 2005 ESRI Wisconsin User Group (EWUG) Meeting Presentation (Zipped PPT - 857Kb)
• WLIA 2005 Annual Conference Presentation (PPT - 934KB)
• WSLS 2005 Annual Institute Presentation (PPT - 11.4MB or PDF - 3.8 MB)
• UW-Madison Seminar Presentation - "Design of the Wisconsin County Coordinate System - Some Current Issues" (Zipped PPT - 12.4 MB)

Resource Links

•  Standards Related:

• SCO Fact Sheet: Coordinate System Task Force
• SCO Wisconsin Coordinate System Handbook (1991-2006)
• European Petroleum Survey Group (EPSG)
  The EPSG, through its geodesy working group, maintains and publishes a data set of parameters for coordinate reference system and coordinate transformation description.
• EPSG Online Database Interface Version 1 & Version 2 beta
• Interoperable Coordinate Transformation and Identification of Coordinate Systems (pdf - 03/00)
• Open Geospatial Consortium(OGC) - Coordinate Transformation Specifications (pdf - 12/01)
• OGC - Recommended XML Encoding of CRS Definitions
• Coordinate Reference System Registry Test Portal

•  Education:

• ESRI Petroleum Users Group - APSG Powerpoint Presentation
  A PowerPoint presentation from the 2004 Geodesy and Map Projection Workshop by Jim Cain and Jon Stigant entitled "Datums, Coordinate Systems, Coordinate Reference Systems and Datum Transformations."
• The National Spatial Reference System Readjustment of NAD83 (ppt - 3.2MB)
  A powerpoint presentation by Chris Pearson from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration delivered in October 2005. A paper on the readjustment (pdf) is also available.

•  Coordinate Conversion Tools

• Coordinate Calculator
• Coordinate Conversion (by GPS2CAD) (Online)
• CoordTrans
• Corpscon Version 6.0
• GEO/GARNIX
• Geocalc 4.20
• GeoCalc 6.1/Geographic Calculator 6.2
• Geodetic Survey Routine: UTM/TM and Geographic (GSRUG)
• Geographic Translator (GEOTRANS)
• PROJ 4: Cartographic Projections Library
• TatukGIS Coordinate Calculator
• Tralaine

Agendas and Minutes

The agendas and minutes from our meetings are available to download in zip files, containing Microsoft Word (*.doc) format. Select a month from the list below:

•  January (1/17) 2006	•  January (1/05) 2005	•  February (2/12) 2004
•  February (2/13) 2006	•  March (3/05) 2005	•  April (4/15) 2004
•  March (3/16) 2006	•  May (5/11) 2005	•  May (5/19) 2004
•  May (5/17) 2006	•  July (7/13) 2005	•  June (6/29) 2004
•  August (8/2) 2006	•  September (9/15) 2005	•  July (7/29) 2004
•  September (9/13) 2006	•  November (11/08) 2005	•  September (9/22) 2004
•  December (12/5) 2006		•  October (10/20) 2004
		•  November (11/23) 2004

Members

•  Ted Koch - State Cartographer, Chair
•  Tom Bushey - ESRI, Minneapolis
•  Diann Danielsen - Dane County
•  John Ellingson - Jackson County
•  Pat Ford - Brown County
•  Gene Hafermann - WI Dept. of Transportation
•  David Hart - UW-Madison Sea Grant
•  Mike Koutnik - ESRI, Minneapolis
•  John Laedlein - WI Dept. of Natural Resources
•  Gerald Mahun - Madison Area Technical College
•  David Moyer - Acting State Advisor, National Geodetic Survey
•  Carl Sandsnes - Royal Oak Engineering, Inc.
•  Glen Schaefer - WI Dept. of Transportation
•  Jerry Sullivan - WI Dept. of Administration
•  Al Vonderohe - UW-Madison, Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering
•  Jay Yearwood - City of Appleton
•  AJ Wortley - State Cartographer's Office

Task Force Timeline

December 2006			Meeting (12/5)
September 2006			Meeting Scheduled(12/5)  Meeting (9/13)
August 2006			Meeting Scheduled(9/13)  Meeting (8/2)
May 2006			Meeting (5/17)
March 2006			Meeting (3/16)  WLIA Coord. Reference Systems Workshop (3/7)  Presentation - WLIA 2006 Annual Conf. (3/2)
February 2006			Presentation - SIAC Seminar by Prof. Al Vonderohe (2/15)  Meeting (2/13)
Jan. 2006			Presentation - WSLS 2006 Conference (1/25)  Meeting (1/17)  Presentation - EWUG 2005 Conference (11/11)
Oct. 2005			Meeting (11/08)  Meeting (9/15)
July 2005			Meeting (7/13)
May 2005			Meeting (5/11)
March 2005			Meeting (3/05)
February 2005			Present to WLIA Board - Motion of Support (2/22)  Presentation - WLIA 2005 Annual Conference (2/22)
Jan. 2005			Present to WSLS Board - Motion of Support (1/27)  Presentation - WSLS 2005 Conference (1/26)  Meeting (1/5)
			Task Force Final Proposal (12/10)  Meeting (11/23)
Oct. 2004			Presentation - UW Seminar by Prof. Al Vonderohe  Meeting (10/20)  Meeting - Proposal drafted to redesign WCCS (9/22)
July 2004			Meeting (7/29)  Meeting (6/29)  Meeting (5/19)
April 2004			Meeting (4/15)  Wisconsin Transverse Mercator (WTM) submitted to EPSG.  First official meeting (2/12). Mission Statement created.
Jan. 2004			WLIA Wisconsin Coordinate System Task Force formed.
Feb. 2003			Wisconsin Coordinate Systems group - organizational meeting.
1995			WCCS published in Wisconsin Coordinate Systems Handbook.

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