Elijah Robison | GIS Blog

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UPDATE 2.19.2013:

It turns out you don’t have to rebuild OpenScales to apply uncommon projections, you can just assign the projection directly to ProjProjection.defs. (See Simon L.’s answer here in the OpenScales user group.)

So if I modify my example toward the bottom of the post (at #5), here is how I would apply the alternate, and arguably better, approach.

(Fair warning, I haven’t compiled this and tested it yet, the only difference is the first line), but this is how I expect it should be. If it doesn’t work like this, it’s likely ‘cos an instance of ProjProjection needs to be created first, and the defs property of the instance needs to be appended. In other words, if this doesn’t work, follow the line instantiating moNADProj with moNADProj.defs[‘EPSG:102697’] = “+title…. blah blah”; One of these days I’ll make super-sure this is correct. But I didn’t want to forget where I found this, hence updating the post.)

private function transformCoordinates():void
{
         // This single line is the only difference:
         ProjProjection.defs['EPSG:102697']="+title=NAD_1983_StatePlane_Missouri_Central_FIPS_2402_Feet +proj=tmerc +lat_0=35.83333333333334 +lon_0=-92.5 +k=0.9999333333333333 +x_0=500000.0000000002 +y_0=0 +ellps=GRS80 +datum=NAD83 +to_meter=0.3048006096012192 +no_defs";

         // Source point's projection, called using the KEY defined above..
         var moNADProj:ProjProjection = new ProjProjection("EPSG:102697");

         // Destination projection (WGS84), which is already available in proj4as..
	 var wgs84Proj:ProjProjection = new ProjProjection("EPSG:4326");

         // The source point, instantiated here using its easting (value along X-axis)
         // and northing (value along the Y-axis) parameters..
	 var projPt:ProjPoint = new ProjPoint(easting,northing);

         // The Proj4as.transform() method returns a ProjPoint object in the new
         // coordinate system; in this case, longitude and latitude.
	 var lonLatPt:ProjPoint = Proj4as.transform(moNADProj, wgs84Proj, projPt);
}

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Original Post:

In short, I wanted to transform projected source coordinates from NAD_1983_StatePlane_Missouri_Central_FIPS_2402_Feet to geodetic coordinates in WGS84. As expected, OpenScales didn’t recognize my relatively uncommon projection, but I had high-hopes I could implement its properties piece-meal, possibly through the ProjParams class, or in some similar fashion.

At first I hoped I would find a static method on ProjProjection like  “ProjProjection.fromProj4Def(String:proj4Def)” which would return an instance of ProjProjection for any valid Proj4 expression, but such a method never emerged from the fog. I did, however, manage to “appened” my rogue projection into the proj4as source code, which ultimately solved my problem —-though admittedly, I still think a method like I described above would be a nice addition. 🙂

So getting to the point, if you need to add an uncommon projection to your OpenScales-derived project, here’s what you can do:

1) Remove openscales-proj4as-1.2.1.swc from your project (alternatively, you could mod these instructions and just recompile the swc) and copy the proj4as source package into your own project’s src directory. In other words, relative to your unpacked OpenScales download, you want to copy in the part I’m emphasizing in bold and underlined:

C:\..\openscales-1.2.1\src\openscales-proj4as\src\main\flex\org\openscales\proj4as\proj

 

2) Now open the file ProjProjection.as and scroll down to about line 20. You should see something like what follows; these are the various projections available through proj4as right out-of-the-box:

static public const defs:Object={
	'EPSG:900913': "+title=Google Mercator EPSG:900913 +proj=merc +ellps=WGS84 +a=6378137 +b=6378137 +lat_ts=0.0 +lon_0=0.0 +x_0=0.0 +y_0=0 +k=1.0 +units=m +nadgrids=@null +no_defs",
	'WGS84': "+title=long/lat:WGS84 +proj=longlat +ellps=WGS84 +datum=WGS84 +units=degrees",
	'EPSG:4326': "+title=long/lat:WGS84 +proj=longlat +a=6378137.0 +b=6356752.31424518 +ellps=WGS84 +datum=WGS84 +units=degrees",
	'EPSG:4269': "+title=long/lat:NAD83 +proj=longlat +a=6378137.0 +b=6356752.31414036 +ellps=GRS80 +datum=NAD83 +units=degrees",

	[.. .. expect several lines of these .. ..]

 

3) At this point, you’ll add your projection’s Proj.4 text to the mix. If you don’t know the Proj.4 expression for your projection, drop by http://www.spatialreference.org, look up your projection, and select the Proj4 link. Once it loads just copy the definition text to your clipboard..

 

4) Now, add your projection’s Proj.4 expression to the defs object, shown in bold, below. You will need to add the underlined part yourself, and frankly, these values are somewhat arbitrary. On the left, ‘EPSG:102697’ becomes the KEY you’ll use  to reference the projection later in code; and the title is even less significant. I recommend keeping your entries relatively sane. Basically, “make it look like the neighboring expressions”. Oh.. and you can put it anywhere in the list, separated by line-breaks if you prefer. I put mind right above the OSGB36/British National Grid entry:

static public const defs:Object={
	'EPSG:900913': "+title=Google Mercator EPSG:900913 +proj=merc +ellps=WGS84 +a=6378137 +b=6378137 +lat_ts=0.0 +lon_0=0.0 +x_0=0.0 +y_0=0 +k=1.0 +units=m +nadgrids=@null +no_defs",
	'WGS84': "+title=long/lat:WGS84 +proj=longlat +ellps=WGS84 +datum=WGS84 +units=degrees",
	'EPSG:4326': "+title=long/lat:WGS84 +proj=longlat +a=6378137.0 +b=6356752.31424518 +ellps=WGS84 +datum=WGS84 +units=degrees",
	'EPSG:4269': "+title=long/lat:NAD83 +proj=longlat +a=6378137.0 +b=6356752.31414036 +ellps=GRS80 +datum=NAD83 +units=degrees",

	'EPSG:102697': "+title=NAD_1983_StatePlane_Missouri_Central_FIPS_2402_Feet +proj=tmerc +lat_0=35.83333333333334 +lon_0=-92.5 +k=0.9999333333333333 +x_0=500000.0000000002 +y_0=0 +ellps=GRS80 +datum=NAD83 +to_meter=0.3048006096012192 +no_defs",

	[.. .. expect several lines of these .. ..]

 

5) That handles adding your projection to proj4as, assuming you want to consume this somewhere in your Flex/ActionScript application, a function like this one will perform your coordinate transformation (this is just to demonstrate the idea —-I don’t actually recommend instantiating both projections each time you want to do a conversion):

private function transformCoordinates():void
{
         // Source point's projection, called using the KEY defined above..
         var moNADProj:ProjProjection = new ProjProjection("EPSG:102697");

         // Destination projection (WGS84), which is already available in proj4as..
	var wgs84Proj:ProjProjection = new ProjProjection("EPSG:4326");

         // The source point, instantiated here using its easting (value along X-axis)
         // and northing (value along the Y-axis) parameters..
	var projPt:ProjPoint = new ProjPoint(easting,northing);

         // The Proj4as.transform() method returns a ProjPoint object in the new
         // coordinate system; in this case, longitude and latitude. Just to emphasize,
         // longitude is returned as X (i.e. x-intercept) and latitude as Y..
	var lonLatPt:ProjPoint = Proj4as.transform(moNADProj, wgs84Proj, projPt);
}

6) Enfin, and mostly for the sake of proving all this worked, here’s a screenshot of the application I’m working on (an AIR app that will integrate with a USB GPS device) showing the coordinate transformation in action.

The map, which is in Mo State Plane Central, tracks mouse movement as easting/northing values (bottom-center), and at the time, my mouse was hovering over Bass Pro Shops, which is a significant Springfield landmark to say the least. The proj4as-transformed coordinates are at bottom-right:

If you want to scruitinize the accuracy of the coordinate transformation, here’s that location in Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/?ll=37.18069720,-93.29592962

And for the curious among you, my USB GPS device (coords at bottom-left) is cranking out quite accurately, too.. but that’s a  post for another day..

Cheers, Elijah