Course Description
This first course in a series on this topic introduces the idea of state plane coordinates, gives some of the background about why and how it was developed in the U.S. by the then Coast and Geodetic Survey. The concepts covered include the idea of developed surfaces (cylinder and cone), and how points on the earth are projected to these surfaces that are then laid out as two-dimensional grids. The variation in how the projections work when inside the lines of true scale, when the surface of the cylinder and cone are below the surface of the ellipsoid, and when outside, near the edges of the projections, above the surface of the ellipsoid. This is a good course for someone wishing to understand some basics about the system qualitatively, but who doesn’t intend to move on the subsequent courses in this series.
Learning Objectives
- History of the development of the USPCS is covered.
- Some of the reasons for why the system was developed, and what problems it solves are discussed.
- The problems created when doing surveys over large extent without considering the earth’s curvature is presented.
- Projections for the chief systems used in the U.S.: Transverse Mercator and Lambert conformal are presented, and how points from the earth are represented on the developed cylinder and cone are shown.
