PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
April 2018
185
in the course). The point to all of this is that there are many
“British Grids” still extant throughout the world that have
boundaries de-fined by ellipsoidal loxodromes. Furthermore,
shipping lanes, called Safety Fairways and Traffic Separa-
tion Schemes (TSS), are defined by end points connected by
ellipsoidal loxodromes. This is one of the realities of contem-
porary computational cartography that the GIS Mapping Sci-
entist may encounter in the real world.
My first job in mapping was as a junior map draftsman
for Offshore Navigation, Inc. (ONI) (now out of business) in
New Orleans during the early 1960s. In later decades, ONI
retained me for consulting work for various coordinate sys-
tem puzzles they encountered from time-to-time. In the ear-
ly 1980s, ONI received a curious message from Israel and
I was asked to solve the problem. Four points were given:
Zikhron Yaakou, Tel Aviv, Ashdod, and Khan Yunis. Coor-
dinates were furnished in Latitude and Longitude and in X
and Y coordinates. No other explanation was offered to me
(or to ONI). Objective: figure out how one set of coordinates
related to the other and “solve the problem, Cliff.” Knowing
what the Datums and Grids of the Palestine, and particular-
ly Israel, used, I started trying the permutation of systems.
The trial-and-error solution yielded the fact that someone in
Israel offered the coordinates of the four points in geodetic
coordinates referenced to the European Datum of 1950 (In-
ter-national 1924 ellipsoid), and the co-ordinates of the same
four points in Cassini-Soldner Grid coordinates in meters ref-
erenced to the Palestine Datum of 1928 on the Clarke 1880
ellipsoid. Therefore, Palestine 1928 to European Datum 1950
is :
Δ
X = – 76 meters,
Δ
Y = +64 meters,
Δ
Z = +442 meters. For
instance, Ashdod on Palestine 1928,
f
= 31° 50´ 07.039” N,
λ
= 34° 38´ 17.396” E, and on ED 50,
f
= 31° 50´ 01.8994” N,
λ
=
34° 38´ 13.6922” E. (No elevations were offered).
In October of 1989, Dr. Ron K. Adler, director general of the
Survey of Israel, offered that the “new” Usrlurim Da-tum ori-
gin at station Urim was :
Φ
o
= 31° 20´ 42.687” North,
Λ
o
= 34°
28´ 02.835” East of Greenwich. The Israel New Datum is refer-
enced to the GRS 1980 ellipsoid where a = 6,378,137 m, and
1
/
f
= 298.2572215381489. The 7-Parameter Datum shift from the
Israel New Datum to WGS84 Datum are:
Δ
X = – 23.500 me-
ters,
Δ
Y = – 18.190 meters,
Δ
Z = – 17.530 meters, Scale = +5.43
X 10
6
, R
x
= – 0.30 arc seconds, R
y
= –1.84 arc seconds, and R
z
= +1.64 arc seconds. The new Grid system is defined as being a
Gauss-Krüger Transverse Mercator where
f
o
= 31° 44´ 03.817”
N,
λ
o
= 35° 12´ 16.261” East of Greenwich, False Northing =
626907.39m, False Easting = 219,529.584m. The Scale Factor
at Origin is 1.0000067 for the New Israel Grid. For example,
on the New Israel Grid: X = 186,691.878m, Y = 666,264.4m, Z
= 82.545m (height above ellipsoid), the corresponding WGS 84
Datum coordinates are:
f
= 32° 05´ 21.16923” N,
λ
= 34° 51´
26.51726” E. h = 82.526m (height above ellipsoid).
Thanks for the help on this column go to Russell Fox of
the UK Ordnance Survey, John W. Hagar (retired from DMA/
NIMA), Mal Jones of Perth, Australia, and others.
U
pdate
Israel has implemented a nation-wide Kinematic GPS
Continuously Operating Reference Station network. The
entire country is now on a new coordinate system named
Israel 2005 (IL05). A new Grid has also been implemented
for cadastral purposes based on the Transverse Mercator;
the selected scale factor at origin is 1.0000067. There is a
50 km shift in the Y axis and a 500 km shift in the X axis,
implemented so as to keep the grid lines unchanged on large
scale maps
(Steinberg, G., and Even-Tzur, G, Establish-
ment of National Grid Based on Permanent GPS Stations
in Israel, Surveying and Land Information Science, Vol. 65,
No. 1, 2005, pp. 47-52)
. See also:
(Ronen, H., Even-Tzur, G.,
Kinematic datum Based on the ITRF as a Precise, Accurate,
and Lasting TRF for Israel, DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)SU.1943-
5428.0000228. © 2017 American Society of Civil Engineers)
.
A fascinating account of all surveying and mapping activi-
ties in a significant portion of the 20
th
century is in:
(Gavish,
Dov, A Survey of Palestine under the British Mandate 1920-
1948, 2010, ISBN 978-0-415-59498-1, 337 pages)
.
The contents of this column reflect the views of the author, who is
responsible for the facts and accuracy of the data presented herein.
The contents do not necessarily reflect the official views or policies of
the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing and/
or the Louisiana State University Center for GeoInformatics (C
4
G).
This column was previously published in
PE&RS
.
Ad Index
Geomni, Inc.
|
Geomni.net/psm
|
Cover 4
Who at ASPRS Do I Contact to…
425 Barlow Place, Suite 210, Bethesda, MD 20814
301-493-0290, 301-493-0208 (fax),
Membership/
PE&RS
Subscription/Conferences
Priscilla Weeks —
, x 109
Advertising/Exhibit Sales
Bill Spilman
Peer-Review Article Submission
Alper Yilmaz —
Highlight Article Submission
Jie Shan —
Calendar
