PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
April 2019
255
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dard grid used in the former U.S.S.R. and most former sat-
ellite countries is the Russia Belts Gauss-Krüger Transverse
Mercator where the grid parameters are identical to the UTM
except that the Russia Belts have a scale factor at origin on
the Central Meridian equal to unity. However, România
did not go along with that for its internal use, even though
the Soviets used their Russia Belts for military topographic
mapping of the country. The “Stereo 70” was developed for
România based on the Hristow Oblique Stereographic projec-
tion. The projection center was selected as
φ
o
= 45° North and
λ
o
= 25° East of Greenwich, and associated parameters were
FE = FN = 500 km and m
o
= 0.999750. Example computation
point is
φ
= 44° 30´ 30˝ N and
λ
= 26° 03´ 03˝ E such that, on
the Stereo 70 Grid, Northing (X) = 334,794.541 m and East-
ing (Y) = 583,553.824 m. As a computational exercise using
the identical geodetic coordinate but computing the Grid on
the Kronstadt Stereo with its different ellipsoid, Northing (Y)
= 345,588.461 m and Easting (X) = 552,344.592 m. Note that
the Kronstadt Stereo unit of angular measurement is Grads
(100
G
= 90°) so that
φ
= 49
G
45
C
37
CC
.037 N and
λ
= 28
G
94
C
53
CC
.704 E for the identical point. NIMA lists the transfor-
mation from System 42 in România to WGS 84 Datum as
∆
X = +28 m ±3 m,
∆
Y = –121 m ±5 m, and
∆
Z = 177 m ±3 m,
and this is based on four collocated points computed in 1997.
The U.S. National Geodetic Survey assisted the government
of România with the establishment of the România High Ac-
curacy Reference Network, and, for station Dealul Pisculci on
System 42,
φ
= 44° 24´ 22.383˝ N,
λ
= 26° 06´ 44.126˝ E, and
H = 89.275 m; and, on EUREF89,
φ
= 44° 24´ 22.71021˝ N,
λ
= 26° 06´ 38.74635˝ E, and h = 124.520 m.
The International Boundary Treaties of România indicate
that the border of the country is largely monumented or along
streams and rivers. Interestingly, the boundary with Hunga-
ry distinguishes between navigable streams that are defined
by the thread of the main channel or thalweg, and non-navi-
gable streams that are defined by the geographical center or
medium filium acquae. Thanks for help go to Russell Fox of
the Ordnance Survey, Giles André of the Defence Geograph-
ic Centre, Dave Doyle of the National Geodetic Survey, and
John W. Hager.
The successful development of countries in the 21
st
century
is going to be largely dependent on the free availability of
spatial data. Although there is little difficulty in a nation-
al government charging fair market value for data, the total
suppression of spatial data distribution for military purposes
of security is quite out of date and futile. Military operations
in the recent past have clearly demonstrated that existing
native topographic maps and existing native geodetic control
have absolutely nothing to do with successful coordination
of fire support. Secrecy of positional data and topographic
maps only hurts the local economy and discourages foreign
investment. It is hoped that the formerly “closed societies”
will move to a more enlightened philosophy regarding GIS
technology.
U
pdate
Transylvania had an unsettled history in the 20
th
century.
As a result of the repeated changing of the region between
Hungary and Romania and of the Soviet dominance between
1945-1990, several map grid systems have been introduced.
Besides the old Hungarian ‘Marosvásárhely’ Stereographic
system and the Romanian Stereo-70 system, the Soviet-type
Gauss-Krüger projection was also introduced. These grids
can be handled together with the world’s quasi-standard, the
UTM system, using this small MS Excel table, Viteaz.
Viteaz is a MS Excel table that allows you to convert UTM,
Soviet-type Gauss-Krüger, Romanian Stereo-70 and old Hun-
garian ‹Marosvásárhely› Stereographic coordinates. You can
enter your input in any of the listed projections and will be
given the result in all the three other systems.
1
can be
downloaded from
Romania has 74 GPS RTK Continuously Operating Refer-
ence Stations at approximately 70 km spacing. The National
(
relative – Ed
) Gravity Network of 1
st
and 2
nd
order (about
270 points) was observed by the Ministry of Defense – To-
pography and Cartography Directorate. The country has four
points determined by Absolute Gravity.
Astrogeodetic leveling was part of a research project cul-
minating in November of 2015. Results showed accuracies
of (
xi,eta
) of ±0.500″ and ±0.745″, respectfully with a Topcon
M505AX with a CCD chip.
2
(In comparison, LSU has issued
a Purchase Order (2019) to the University of Latvia, Institute
for Geodesy & GeoInformatics for a Digital Zenith Camera
that has an accuracy of ±0.100″ in both components-after one
hour’s observation-automatically.)
The Romanian government has a transformation package
it is TransDatRO and can be downloaded from
.
1
2
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
.
