CRS-class {sp}

Class "CRS" of coordinate reference system arguments

Description

Interface class to the PROJ projection and transformation system. The class is defined as an empty stub accepting value NA in the sp package. The initiation function may call the PROJ library through sf to verify the argument set against those known in the library, returning error messages where necessary. If the "CRS" object is instantiated using CRS() with sf using PROJ >= 6 and GDAL >= 3, the object may also have a WKT2 (2019) string carried as a comment. The arguments for a Proj.4 string must be entered exactly as in the Proj.4 documentation, in particular there cannot be any white space in +<key>=<value> strings, and successive such strings can only be separated by blanks. Note that only “+proj=longlat +ellps=WGS84” is accepted for geographical coordinates, which must be ordered (eastings, northings); the “+ellps=” definition must be given (or expanded internally from a given “+datum=” value) for recent versions of the Proj.4 library, and should be set to an appropriate value.

Usage

CRS(projargs, doCheckCRSArgs=TRUE, SRS_string=NULL, get_source_if_boundcrs=TRUE,
 use_cache=TRUE)
identicalCRS(x,y)

Arguments

projargs

A character string of projection arguments; the arguments must be entered exactly as in the PROJ.4 documentation; if the projection is unknown, use as.character(NA), it may be missing or an empty string of zero length and will then set to the missing value. With sf built with PROJ >= 6 and GDAL >= 3, the +init= key may only be used with value epsg:<code>. From sp version 1.4-4, the string associated with the SRS_string argument may be entered as-is and will be set as SRS_string if the projargs argument does not begin with a + (suggested by Mikko Vihtakari).

doCheckCRSArgs

default TRUE

SRS_string

default NULL, only used when sf is built with PROJ >= 6 and GDAL >= 3; a valid WKT string or SRS definition such as "EPSG:4326" or "ESRI:102761"

get_source_if_boundcrs

(from rgdal 1.5-17, default TRUE) The presence of the +towgs84= key in a Proj4 string projargs= argument value may promote the output WKT2 CRS to BOUNDCRS for PROJ >= 6 and GDAL >= 3, which is a coordinate operation from the input datum to WGS84. This is often unfortunate, so a PROJ function is called through rgdal to retrieve the underlying source definition.

use_cache

default TRUE, if FALSE ignore cached lookup values

x

object having a proj4string method, or if y is missing, list with objects that have a proj4string method

y

object of class Spatial, or having a proj4string method

Value

CRS returns on success an object of class CRS. identicalCRS returns a logical, indicating whether x and y have identical CRS, or if y is missing whether all objects in list x have identical CRS.

Objects from the Class

Objects can be created by calls of the form CRS("projargs"), where "projargs" is a valid string of PROJ.4 arguments. If the argument is a zero-length string or a character NA, the object records NA. If the "CRS" object is instantiated using CRS() with sf using PROJ >= 6 and GDAL >= 3, the object may also have a WKT2 (2019) string carried as a comment. The initiation function may call the PROJ library through sf to verify the argument set against those known in the library, returning error messages where necessary.

Slots

projargs:

Object of class "character": projection arguments; the arguments must be entered exactly as in the PROJ.4 documentation, in particular there cannot be any white space in +<arg>=<value> strings, and successive such strings can only be separated by blanks.

Methods

show

signature(object = "CRS"): print deprecated Proj.4 projection arguments and WKT2 2019 representation if available

wkt

signature(object = "CRS"): return WKT comment on object

rebuild_CRS

rebuild a CRS object, usually used to add a WKT comment with PROJ >= 6 and GDAL >= 3

Note

Lists of projections may be seen by using the programs installed with the PROJ.4 library, in particular proj and cs2cs; with the latter, -lp lists projections, -le ellipsoids, -lu units, and -ld datum(s) known to the installed software (available in sf using sf_proj_info). These are added to in successive releases, so tracking the website or compiling and installing the most recent revisions will give the greatest choice. Finding the very important datum transformation parameters to be given with the +towgs84 tag is a further challenge, and is essential when the datums used in data to be used together differ. Tracing projection arguments is easier now than before the mass ownership of GPS receivers raised the issue of matching coordinates from different argument sets (GPS output and paper map, for example). See GridsDatums, sf_proj_info for help in finding CRS definitions.

The 4.9.1 release of the PROJ library omitted a small file of defaults, leading to reports of “major axis or radius = 0 or not given” errors. From 0.9-3, rgdal checks for the presence of this file (proj_def.dat), and if not found, and under similar conditions to those used by PROJ.4, adds “+ellps=WGS84” to the input string being checked by checkCRSArgs The “+no_defs” tag ignores the file of defaults, and the default work-around implemented to get around this problem; strings including “init” and “datum” tags also trigger the avoidance of the work-around. Now messages are issued when a candidate CRS is checked; they may be suppressed using suppressMessages.

From release 6 of the PROJ library, when used in building sf with GDAL >= 3, the +datum= key in the Proj.4 string CRS representation is deprecated, and the +towgs84= and +nadgrids= keys may be deprecated soon. For this reason, sp and sf are starting to use WKT2 (2019) string representations. In sp, the "CRS" object in itself remains unchanged, but the content of its "projargs" slot may be degraded. To work around the degradation, a comment is added around the "CRS" object containing a WKT2 (2019) string when sf is available and built with PROJ >= 6 and GDAL >=3.

Author(s)

Roger Bivand [e-mail]

References

https://github.com/OSGeo/PROJ

Examples

CRS()
CRS("")
CRS(as.character(NA))
CRS("+proj=longlat +datum=WGS84")
run <- FALSE
run <- require(sf) 
if (run) {
  print((CRS("+proj=longlat +datum=NAD27")))
}
if (run) {
  print((CRS("+init=epsg:4267")))
}
if (run) {
  print((CRS("+init=epsg:26978")))
}
if (run) {
  print((CRS(paste("+proj=sterea +lat_0=52.15616055555555",
 "+lon_0=5.38763888888889 +k=0.999908 +x_0=155000 +y_0=463000 +ellps=bessel",
 " +towgs84=565.237,50.0087,465.658,-0.406857,0.350733,-1.87035,4.0812 +units=m"))))
}
if (run) {
  print((CRS("+init=epsg:28992")))
}
if (run) {
  print((CRS("EPSG:28992")))
}
if (run) {
  print((CRS(SRS_string="EPSG:28992")))
}
if (run) {
  o <- try(CRS(SRS_string="ESRI:102760"))
  if (!inherits(o, "try-error")) print((o))
}
if (run) {
  o <- try(CRS("EPSG:4326"))
  if (!inherits(o, "try-error")) print((o))
}
if (run) {
  o <- try(CRS("ESRI:102760"))
  if (!inherits(o, "try-error")) print((o))
}
if (run) {
o <- new("Spatial")
proj4string(o) <- CRS("+init=epsg:27700")
}
if (run && !is.null(comment(slot(o, "proj4string")))) {
  cat(wkt(o), sep="\n")
  cat(wkt(slot(o, "proj4string")), sep="\n")
}