Proj4: No support for vertical keywords such as geoidgrids and vunits

[jfbourgon]

Trying to parse a proj4 string such as the following:

+proj=utm +zone=18 +ellps=GRS80 +towgs84=0,0,0,0,0,0,0 +units=m +geoidgrids=CGG2013n83a.gtx +vunits=m +no_defs"

will raise org.osgeo.proj4j.UnsupportedParameterException

org.osgeo.proj4j.UnsupportedParameterException: vunits parameter is not supported
  at org.osgeo.proj4j.parser.Proj4Keyword.checkUnsupported(Proj4Keyword.java:131)
  at org.osgeo.proj4j.parser.Proj4Keyword.checkUnsupported(Proj4Keyword.java:138)
  at org.osgeo.proj4j.parser.Proj4Parser.parse(Proj4Parser.java:49)
  at org.osgeo.proj4j.CRSFactory.createFromParameters(CRSFactory.java:136)
  at org.osgeo.proj4j.CRSFactory.createFromParameters(CRSFactory.java:114)
  at geotrellis.proj4.CRS$$anon$1.<init>(CRS.scala:43)
  at geotrellis.proj4.CRS$.fromString(CRS.scala:42)

or

org.osgeo.proj4j.UnsupportedParameterException: geoidgrids parameter is not supported
  at org.osgeo.proj4j.parser.Proj4Keyword.checkUnsupported(Proj4Keyword.java:131)
  at org.osgeo.proj4j.parser.Proj4Keyword.checkUnsupported(Proj4Keyword.java:138)
  at org.osgeo.proj4j.parser.Proj4Parser.parse(Proj4Parser.java:49)
  at org.osgeo.proj4j.CRSFactory.createFromParameters(CRSFactory.java:136)
  at org.osgeo.proj4j.CRSFactory.createFromParameters(CRSFactory.java:114)
  at geotrellis.proj4.CRS$$anon$1.<init>(CRS.scala:43)
  at geotrellis.proj4.CRS$.fromString(CRS.scala:42)

Indeed such parameters are not listed in SupportedParameter TreeSet in Proj4Keyword.java

[pomadchin]

Hi @jfbourgon! A good question! We already had this problem working with pointclouds and in fact we actually don't use vertical units, so you can just omit unsupported parameters.

+proj=utm +zone=18 +ellps=GRS80 +towgs84=0,0,0,0,0,0,0 +units=m +no_defs"

Let me know if that worked for you!

[jfbourgon]

I'm actually getting such issue when I try to access the extent property of a geotrellis.pointcloud.spark.io.hadoop.HadoopPointCloudHeader instance.

In this context, I don't have much control on the actual value of the proj4 string itself. However, I noticed that I may have some control over it by altering my current GDAL/proj4 configuration files.

For instance I got rid of the +geoidgrids parameter by commenting out the following entry in the vertcs.override.csv file referenced by my GDAL_DATA environment variable.

#6647,CGVD2013 height,1127,Canadian Geodetic Vertical Datum of 2013,9001,1,0,6499,9665,CGG2013n83a.gtx

[pomadchin]

@jfbourgon very glad to her that you are using pointclouds with geotrellis!
PDAL allows to specify input crs for the input data: https://github.com/geotrellis/geotrellis-pointcloud-demo/blob/master/src/app-backend/ingest/src/main/scala/com/azavea/pointcloud/ingest/Ingest.scala#L31-L52

You can define pipeline for HadoopPointCloudRDD:

val pipeline = Read("", "inputCrs")

[jfbourgon]

Thanks! I was able to properly read extent from header using the suggested workaround.

Here are the steps I used:

val pipeline = Read("", Option("+proj=utm +zone=18 +ellps=GRS80 +towgs84=0,0,0,0,0,0,0 +units=m +no_defs"))
val rdd = HadoopPointCloudRDD("/gpfs/dev/VILLE_MONTREAL/VILLE_MONTREAL/18_E_5_52/POINT_CLOUD/292-5048_2015_2-5-6.las", HadoopPointCloudRDD.Options.DEFAULT.copy(pipeline = pipeline))(sc)
val header = rdd.first._1

header.extent
res0: geotrellis.vector.Extent = Extent(604226.62, 5047340.41, 605244.4, 5048358.67)
header.extent3D
res1: geotrellis.pointcloud.spark.Extent3D = Extent3D(604226.62,5047340.41,10.39565,605244.4,5048358.67,52.11369)

However, it would be nice to get complete support for vertical keywords in proj4j some day.

[lossyrob]

This issue should be moved to Proj4j once it gets up and running with LocationTech

[pomadchin]

It's a proj4 issue now:locationtech/proj4j#20

[fguiet]

Hi,
Got the same problem trying to use:

val las = spark.read.format("geotrellis.pointcloud.spark.datasource").option("path","hdfs:///user/guiet/test_geotrellis/USGS_LPC_LA_Barataria_2013_15RYN6548_LAS_2015.las").load

Is there a workaround for my case?

[AnkitDev21]

fun convertLatLonAltToUtm(
latitude: Double,
longitude: Double,
altitude: Double
): ProjCoordinate? {
val input = ProjCoordinate(longitude, latitude, altitude)
val result = ProjCoordinate()
val crsFactory = CRSFactory()
val WGS84 = crsFactory.createFromParameters(
"WGS84", "+proj=longlat +datum=WGS84 +no_defs"
)
val UTM = crsFactory.createFromParameters(
"UTM", "+proj=utm +zone=32 +ellps=GRS80 +towgs84=0,0,0,0,0,0,0 +units=m +vunits=m +no_defs"
)
val ctFactory = CoordinateTransformFactory()
val wgsToUtm = ctFactory.createTransform(WGS84, UTM)
wgsToUtm.transform(input, result)
return result
}
getting this vunits parameter is not supported do you know why?

[pomadchin]

Hey @AnkitDev21, yes, the underlying library does not support it: locationtech/proj4j#20