472
July 2017
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
and Trade, and finally back to Interior. In 1823, all operating
funds were suspended. The first 50 years of survey and map-
ping work had not been reproduced in large quantities because
maps were generally considered a military secret. The first map
printed was a county map of Smaalenenes that was published
in 1826 at a scale of 1:200,000. In fact, two of the NTO survey-
ors obtained permission to have it engraved and printed in
Paris at their own expense. In 1833, the organization´s name
was changed to Norges Geografiske Oppmåling (Geographical
Survey of Norway, or NGO). By 1854, NGO obtained the exper-
tise and equipment to publish their own maps. The first series
of published maps were cast on the Cassini-Soldner projection
and were referenced to the Svandberg 1805 ellipsoid where the
semi-major axis (a) = 6,376,797.0 meters and the reciprocal of
flattening (
1
/
f
) = 304.2506. Presumably, this was based on the
Oslo Observatory Datum (of 1810?) where: Φ
o
= 59° 54´ 44.00˝
North, Λ
o
= 10° 43´ 22.5˝ East of Greenwich. However, the de-
fining azimuth to Husbergoen was not observed until 1869.
The sheets had no printed grid, and were cast on the graticule
such that they measured 20´ of latitude and 1° of longitude. The
sheets started at 58° North and were evenly spaced longitudi-
nally from Oslo Observatory. This lasted until 1844 when the
ellipsoid was changed to the Bessel 1841, and then the series
was continued through 1890. This strange series of map sheets
was actually a common design for the time.(The Grove Charts
were based on the Cassini-Soldner projection also). In 1891, the
Cassini-Soldner projection was replaced by the polyhedric pro-
jection. As I have pointed out in past columns, the polyhedric
is mathematically equivalent to the system commonly used for
computational photogrammetry, which is the local space rect-
angular. The U.S. equivalent was merely based on a different
aphylactic projection, the polyconic.
Prof. Hamsteen became the new director of the survey in
1832, and a new triangulation commenced in 1834 from Kris-
tiania (Oslo) to Trondheim covering most of southern Norway.
The Russian-Scandinavian geodetic survey extended from
Swedish Lapland to Fuglenes at Hammerfest in Norway from
1845-50. The Fuglenes Datum of 1850 origin is where: Φ
o
=
70° 40´ 11.23˝ North, Λ
o
= 23° 40´ 12.8˝ East of Greenwich.
The ellipsoid of reference is the Bessel 1841, but some of the
original manuscript computations must surely be on the Wal-
beck 1819, which was the standard for the Russians at that
time. The defining azimuth was to station Jedki. By 1874, the
NGO was transferred from the General Staff to the Army De-
partment. The Triangulation Division started a second-order
triangulation in 1880, and adopted a network adjustment phi-
losophy in 1903. Computations in geodetic coordinates were
introduced in 1891. The Gauss-Krüger Transverse Mercator
system for Norway was initiated in 1916 and is based on the
Oslo Observatory Datum of 1844. The ellipsoid of refer-ence is
the Bessel 1841 where the semi-major axis (a) = 6,377,397.155
meters and the reciprocal of flattening (
1
/
f
) = 299.1528128.
Terrestrial photogrammetric experiments started in 1907,
and phototheodolites were purchased in 1910. In 1920, a Zeiss
Stereoautograph was purchased for the compilation of terres-
trial photography, although the plane table and alidade was
still used to supplement detail for holidays in the photo cover-
age. All topographic mapping was performed with aerial pho-
tographs after 1933. By 1936, a Zeiss C-1 Universal Stereo-
planigraph was in production at NGO.
The military Grids used for Norway through World War II
were the Northern European Lambert Conformal Conic Zones
I-III. These were complicated systems that had Grid bound-
aries defined by other Grid systems, by the graticule, and by
numerous ellipsoidal loxodromes. Although easy to compute
nowadays, these Grids were part of the nightmare for U.S.
Army Topographic Engineers in the 1940s.
After WW II, the Oslo Observatory Datum of 1844 was trans-
formed to the European Datum of 1950 (ED50) through the
Northern Block Adjustment of 1949-51. The U.S. Coast & Geo-
detic Survey performed the computations on the International
Ellipsoid where: a = 6,378,388 meters, and
1
/
f
= 297. The modern
Norwegian triangulation south of approximately 62° latitude
was connected to the Central European Net using the principal
triangulation arcs of Sweden and Denmark. Flare triangulation
over the Skagerrak was used between Denmark and Norway.
The Norwegian triangulation north of approximately 62° lati-
tude was subsequently included in the European Datum as a
supplementary adjustment of the Northern Block from Septem-
ber 1951 through June 1952. The only exception to the stan-
dard Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) Grid zones in the
entire world is for the southern half of Nor-way, where the zone
exceeds 3° from the Central Meridian! This exception accom-
modates the southern half of the Kingdom in one “V 32” zone.
During this same period, Norway adjusted their new civilian
datum NGO 1948, and they retained the Bessel 1841 ellipsoid
with the point of origin still at the Oslo Observatory.
Svalbard is a group of nine main is-lands north of Norway
that officially became a territory of the Kingdom on 14 August
1925. The most famous is-land of the group is Spitzbergen, and
the main economic activity is coal mining. The coordinate sys-
tems of Svalbard include the Thumb Point Datum of 1948 ori-
gin where: Φ
o
= 79° 03´ 58.97˝ North, Λ
o
= 2° 48´ 15.36˝ East of
Greenwich, and is referenced to the Bessel 1841 ellipsoid. The
Hedgehog Datum origin is where: Φ
o
= 76° 57´ 53.210˝ North,
Λ
o
= 17° 19´ 52.500˝ East of Greenwich, and is referenced to
the Clarke 1880 ellipsoid. The New Spitzbergen Datum of
1948 consisted mainly of re-computing Hedgehog Datum coor-
dinates on the Bessel 1841 ellipsoid. Other observations that
were recomputed in that same epoch included the Isachson
triangulation of 1909-10, the Polish 1934 Expedition triangu-
lation, the Cadastral system of the Svalbard Commissioner,
several points of the Italian Hydrographic Expedition, and the
Dahl Grid system. Note that this strategic island group was
the subject of a treaty 5 years prior to becoming a Norwegian
territory, and the signatories totaled 41 sovereign nations.
Considering the number of countries participating, the num-
ber of local datums for so small an area is not surprising.
Jan Mayen is an island northwest of Norway that was an-
nexed on 8 May 1929. The island is slightly larger in area than
Washington, D. C., there are no permanent inhabitants, and
the only occupation is for manning a weather station and a
Loran C base station. In 1949, the Norsk Polarinstitutt estab-
lished the only classical coordinate system for the island as the
