254
April 2019
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
Barozzi was appointed as the chief (and founder) of the Sci-
entific War Dépôt, the national military mapping department
of România. The third topographic survey of the Austro-Hun-
garian Empire (Neue Aufnahme) was conducted from 1869 to
1896 and was based on the St. Anna Datum of 1840, located
in Arad, România. The origin was at Arad South Base: Φ
o
= 46° 18´ 47.63˝ North and Λ
o
= 39° 06´ 54.19˝ East of Ferro
(geodetically determined from Vienna). This Datum was orig-
inally referenced to the Zach 1812 ellipsoid, but the Austrians
introduced the Bessel 1841 ellipsoid as a new standard for the
empire in 1869 where
a
= 6,377,397.155 m and
1
/
f
= 299.1528.
The defining azimuth to Kurtics was determined astronom-
ically, but the angular value was not published and is now
lost. The Arad 1840 Base length was 8,767.578 m. The met-
ric system was legally established in 1872, and the 1:25,000
mapping scale was introduced along with the polyeder (poly-
hedric) projection to eliminate inconsistencies in map sheet
lines. Remember that in past columns I have pointed out that
the polyhedric projection is mathematically equivalent to the
local space rectangular (LSR) coordinate system that is com-
monly used in computational photogrammetry. Of course,
back then they did not transform first to the Earth-centered
Geo-centric Coordinate System and then perform a 3 by 3 ro-
tation secant or tangent to the surface of the ellipsoid the way
we do now. (It’s trivial with Fortran or C, but mind-boggling
with tables of logarithms).
A chain from St. Anna base line to Sibiu (Hermannstadt)
Observatory was computed in 1846. The computations again
were based on the Zach 1812 ellipsoid and St. Anna was used
as a starting point. From these computations for Sibiu Obser-
vatory, the following values were obtained:
φ
= 45° 50´ 28.95˝
North,
λ
= 41° 46´ 39.00˝ East of Ferro, and the azimuth to
Presbe
α
= 359° 16´ 33.78˝. If these values are compared
with the values derived in 1870 from Vienna University
using the Bessel 1841 ellipsoid:
φ
= 45° 50´ 25.97˝ North,
λ
= 41° 46´ 31.66˝ East of Ferro, and the azimuth to Presbe
α
= 359° 16´ 43.24˝. The result of this “bust” was that the car-
tographic adjustments were a nightmare for nearly a century
when trying to fit other datums to Românian sheets.
Thanks to John W. Hager, the Constanta Datum estab-
lished by the Russians in the 19
th
century originated at
the minaret of the main mosque in Constanta where
Φ
o
= 44° 10´ 31˝ North and
Λ
o
= 29° 39´ 30.55˝ East of Greenwich.
The reference azimuth from East Pyramid to West Pyramid
on the Kyustendyi (Constanta) Base was
α
o
= 305° 15´ 01.7˝,
and the ellipsoid used was the Walbeck where
a
= 6,376,896
m and
1
/
f
= 302.78.
The Austrians were at work in Bukovina and Transylvania
through this time, and established the Kronstadt base in 1876
that measured 4,130.141 m ±1/2,000,000. A famous name in
east European coordinate systems, Kronstadt is merely the
Austrian name for the central Românian Alpine city of Bra-
sov. Two ellipsoidal Bonne Grids were established in 1870,
both cast on the Bessel 1841 ellipsoid, the West Românian
Bonne where
φ
o
= 45° 00´ North and
λ
o
= 26° 06´ 41.18˝
East of Greenwich, and the East Românian Bonne where
φ
o
= 46° 30´ North and
λ
o
= 27° 20´ 13.35˝ East of Greenwich.
Both of these Grids had a scale factor at origin equal to unity
and had no false origin.
During World War I, the necessity for a conformal grid
system became evident for artillery fire control, and Profes-
sor Cholesky developed a Lambert Conformal Conic Cadrilaj
(Grid) for România. Cholesky imposed two conditions on the
design:
(i) The projection distance between parallels 45
G
and 50
G
shall equal the distance between parallels 50
G
and
55
G
, and both these distances shall be 500 km.
(ii) The scale factor at the central parallel shall equal the
reciprocal of the scale factors at the projection limits.
Thanks to Giles André of the Defence Geographic Centre
in Middlesex, Placinteanu in 1940 and Negoescu in 1942 at-
tempted to recreate and extend the original Lambert-Choles-
ky Tables. The closest computational cartographic fit yielded
the following parameters: Clarke 1880 ellipsoid (modified
for this Grid)
a
= 6,378,249.2 m,
e
2
= 0.00680348764, m
o
= 0.99844674,
φ
o
= 45° 02´ 29.216˝ North,
λ
o
= 24° 18´ 44.99˝
East of Greenwich, False Easting = 500 km, and False North-
ing = 504,599.11 m. These parameters are not a reflection of
a Lambert-Cholesky projection, but for a projection in sympa-
thy with Cholesky’s over România.
After WWI, the new origin point for the Bucharest Datum
of 1920 was based on the Bucharest Military Observatory,
and the astronomical coordinates were transferred to point
Militari, situated at the end of the Bucharest baseline, where
Φ
o
= 44° 26´ 07.2832˝ North and
Λ
o
= 26° 01´ 00.207984˝ East
of Greenwich. The reference azimuth to Ciorogârla (west end
of base) was
α
o
= 96° 43´ 22.8˝ (measured from south), and
the new ellipsoid used was the Hayford 1909 (later termed
the International 1924) where
a
= 6,378,388 m and
1
/
f
= 297.
With ten years of triangulation progress, theNewRomânian
Datum of 1930 was established and referenced to the Inter-
national 1924 ellipsoid. The origin was at Observatorul Mil-
itar Astronomic din Dealul Piscului, Bucuresti, called “Deal-
ul Piscului” in the West, where
Φ
o
= 44° 24´ 34.20˝ North
±0.06˝ (1895) and
Λ
o
= 26° 06´ 44.98˝ East of Greenwich
±0.075˝ (1900.7). The reference azimuth to Cotroceni, origi-
nally observed in 1895, was
α
o
= 127° 01´ 53.005˝. A Rousilhe
Stereographic Grid was developed with its projection cen-
ter near the geographic center of the country. The defining
parameters are
φ
o
= 51
G
= 45° 54´ North,
λ
o
= 28
G
2138.51
= 25° 23´ 32.8772˝ East of Greenwich, FE = FN = 500 km,
and m
o
= 0.9996666666. Because the origin is near Kronstadt
(now Brasov), it came to be known as the “Stereographic Pro-
jection with Kronstadt as Central Point.”
After WWII, România was introduced to the Soviet “Sys-
tem 42˝ Datum with its origin at Pulkovo Observatory,
where
Φ
o
= 59° 46´ 18.55˝ North and
Λ
o
= 30° 19´ 42.09˝
East of Greenwich. The reference azimuth to Signal A is
α
o
= 317° 02´ 50.62˝, and the new ellipsoid used is the Krass-
ovsky 1940 where
a
= 6,378,245 m and
1
/
f
= 298.3. The stan-
