Wisconsin Geospatial News

NGS Publishes SPCS2022 Parameters on Alpha Website

The National Geodetic Survey (NGS) has published projection parameters for the new State Plane Coordinate System (SPCS2022) on its alpha website.

When the modernized NSRS (National Spatial Reference System) becomes official — anticipated to occur in 2026 — SPCS2022 will be referenced to the 2022 NSRS Terrestrial Reference Frames to support surveying, engineering and mapping activities.

Wisconsin readers can Filter Records using “Wisconsin” to see the definitions for Wisconsin’s 59 Low Distortion Projections (LDPs) and statewide zone. Wisconsin’s SPCS2022 LDPs are known as WIGGS (Wisconsin Grid-Ground Systems) in Wisconsin, although NGS does not use this name. On the NGS alpha website, Wisconsin’s LDPs are denoted with a status of “final.” However, as SPCS2022 is not yet complete and still undergoing rollout and testing, these parameters should be considered provisional. The NGS alpha website is intended purely for an early glimpse into future releases.

Attributes in the parameter table include Zone Name, Projection Type, Latitude and Longitude of Origin, Scale Factor along Origin, and False Easting and Northing.

Due to changes implemented by NGS, these parameters have some subtle differences from initial parameters originally developed by the Wisconsin Spatial Reference System Task Force (WSRS2022). It is the NGS parameters that will be the final authoritative values, once the modernized NSRS is fully approved.

Initial maps of linear distortion for statewide and LDPs are also available on the alpha website.