1. Incorporating the US National Grid into Map Products
Randy Knippel
Dakota County

2. United States National Grid (USNG)
National standard since 2001
Adopted by federal agencies
FEMA, DHS, NGA, USGS
Adopted by several states
Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, others
Minnesota (March 25, 2009)
Military Grid Referencing System
Interoperable with UTM

3. Grid Zone Designation (GZD) 6 x 8 Degrees

4. 100 Km Squares

5. 10 Km Squares
USNG:15T VK 75
UTM: Zone 15 N
470,000 E
4,950,000 N

6. 1 Km Squares
USNG:15T VK 7857
UTM: Zone 15 N
478,000 E
4,957,000 N

7. Why? Multiple grids Need efficient location referencing
Needed one for everyone
Need efficient location referencing
Need interoperability
Across jurisdictions
Local, state, federal, military

8. What about Lat / Long? Not intuitive Several formats
Degrees, minutes, seconds
Several formats
DMS, DMS.sss, DM.mmm, D.ddd
Longitude
+ / -
West / east
Increases right to left

9. What about Lat / Long? How big is a degree?
It varies
69 miles at the equator
Longitude gets smaller toward poles
50 miles in Dakota County
Distance calculations are difficult

10. Scalable
National
Regional
Local

11. Precision and Truncation
18SUJ
18S UJ
1 meter precision, full USNG designation
UJ2306
Assume GZD (18S)
UJ – 100,000 m precision (100 km square)
23 06 – 1000 m precision (1 km square)
10 m precision
Assume GZD and 100 km square

12. Truncating GZD USNG:15T VK (100Km square)
VK is unique for 800 miles in any direction

13. `

16. Critical Infrastructure Key Resources Vulnerable Population

17. GIS For Emergency Management
Damage assessment
Response
Preparation
Recovery
Status
Resource deployment
Mitigation
Planning
Analysis

18. Maps!

19. Fire Map Book

20. Map Index

21. Map 7456 (15T VK 74 56)

22. Street Index
Dana Dr.

23. Map VK75
7456

24. Map 7456 (15T VK 74 56)
(15T VK )

25. Deployment Maps and map books on the web Printed maps and map books
Strategic distribution
Train the trainer
Training
Dispatch

26. Red River Flood
100K
10K 1K

30. Statewide Effort Create 10K maps for entire state
FGDC CAP grant
Structures & data stewardship
Engage locals to verify data
Develop data, templates, procedures
File naming convention

38. Merge PDF’s For each USNG pdf file in the overlay directory:
Find the corresponding USNG pdf file in the basemap directory
Merge the overlay pdf and legend pdf file into the basemap pdf
Write the output pdf to a new directory using a date / time stamp

39. Merge PDF’s Adobe Acrobat – Standard Edition
Watermark (with transparency!)
Adobe Acrobat – Pro Edition
Scripting
Python Scripting
PyPDF
Batch processing
Others…

40. Python Script Using PyPDF
from pyPdf import PdfFileWriter, PdfFileReader output = PdfFileWriter() basemap = PdfFileReader(file("basemap\15TVK85.pdf", "rb")) overlay = PdfFileReader(file("event1\15TVK85.pdf", "rb")) legend = PdfFileReader(file("event1\legend.pdf", "rb")) result = input1.getPage(0) result.mergePage(overlay.getPage(0)) result.mergePage(legend.getPage(0)) output.addPage(result) output.write(file(" \15TVK85.pdf", "wb")) outputStream.close()

41. Special Case At GZD Boundaries

46. USNG Field Names

47. We Need Your Help! Study USNG standard and materials
Provide peer review
USNG data
Field names
Template MXD’s
10K maps
Develop standard procedures & scripts
Sell it!