Ground Truth: Low Distortion Map Projections for Engineering, Surveying, and GIS

Abstract

Map projection linear distortion is manifested as a difference in distance between a pair of projected (map grid) coordinates and the true horizontal distance at the surface of the Earth. Such differences often exceed a few hundred parts per million (ppm) for published coordinate systems (such as state plane and UTM). It can be problematic for various geospatial products and services, such as engineering plans, construction staking, as-built surveys, property boundary plats, and facilities management systems. Although this distortion cannot be eliminated, it can be optimally reduced using low distortion projections (LDPs): conformal map projections for minimizing linear distortion. A method for designing LDPs is shown that yields optimal results even for large areas of variable elevation, and it can provide distortion more than an order of magnitude lower than the traditional method of scaling State Plane coordinates “to ground.” Importantly, LDPs are based on common existing projection types, so they are fully compatible with engineering, surveying, and GIS data (an additional advantage over scaled State Plane). Because they are rigorously georeferenced, LDP datasets can directly represent conditions “at ground” in GIS and CAD platforms without resorting to best-fit approximate transformations.

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