The NTv2 (National Transformation Version 2) file standard was developed by the Canadian government in 1995 to describe shift data for transformations of geographic points from one datum to another (originally from NAD27 to NAD83). This file format has since then come into world-wide use, with over a dozen countries publishing NTv2 files for their areas. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of documentation on the contents and syntax of NTv2 files, and there are no easily available programs for creating and/or dumping them. This distribution is intended to address this need.
This package contains a C library, some sample programs to create, dump, and use NTv2 files, and some sample NTv2 files to test with.
For further information, see the Canadian document NTv2 (National Transformation Version 2) URL archived 2014-01-27. Original URL. The relevant section is "Appendix B: NTv2 Developers Guide".
The original NTv2 file format, as documented by the Canadian government, is for a binary file. However, unlike ascii files, writing a binary file requires a specific program designed for that particular data layout. The most useful type of such a program would be one that would convert a ascii file to its binary equivalent.
Therefore, this package describes a proposed ascii file syntax for NTv2 files that corresponds to the binary format. Using this ascii format, it is easy to create a file that contains all the data, which can then be converted to a standard binary file.
All binary NTv2 files have the extension ".gsb", for "Grid Shift Binary". Correspondingly, for the ascii versions of the file, we propose the extension ".gsa", for "Grid Shift Ascii". We will refer to these files as GSB and GSA files. The sample programs included here automatically determine whether a NTv2 file is binary or ascii by inspecting the extension of the file name (not the contents of the file).
Both binary and ascii NTv2 files are laid out as follows:
overview record
sub-file record 1
grid-shift records for sub-file 1
...
sub-file record n (if present)
grid-shift records for sub-file n
end record
There must be at least one sub-file record, and it must be a parent record. There can be any number of other parent records, and the parent records can have children, which may also have children themselves (and so on). The sub-file records can appear in any order; the parent/child relationships are denoted by each record identifying its parent (if one) by name.
See the section "GSA file syntax" below for details specific to the proposed ascii format.
The "ntv2_file" program provides the ability to copy NTv2 files, dump the contents of NTv2 files, and validate the headers of NTv2 files. Once a user has created a GSA containing his data, he can then easily use this program to create a standard GSB file from it for distribution.
The usage (from executing "ntv2_file -help") is:
Usage: ntv2_file [options] file ...
Options:
-?, -help Display help
-v Validate files
-i Ignore errors
-l List header info
-h Dump header info
-s Dump header summaries
-d Dump shift data
-a Dump shift data and accuracies
-B Write big-endian binary file
-L Write little-endian binary file
-N Write native-endian binary file
(default is same as input file)
-o file Specify output file
-e wlon slat elon nlat Specify extent
A very important option is the "-v" (validate) option, which tells the program to perform an extensive analysis of the files for consistency and adherence with the NTv2 standard. It is highly recommended that this option be used prior to creating a file for distribution to insure it is valid.
Note that some NTv2 files are quite large, as they cover an entire country. For example, Australia's "National_84_02_07_01.gsb" file is 12MB, Canada's "Ntv2_0.gsb" file is 13MB, and Japan's "tky2jgd.gsb" file is 130MB. Thus, this program also includes the option of creating a new smaller file that is cut down by a specified extent. This may be of significant use for inclusion in mobile environments where available memory may be at a premium.
This program can be used to create a binary file from an ascii file (GSA -> GSB) or to create an ascii file from a binary file (GSB -> GSA). In fact, the sample ascii file included here (mne.gsa) was created with the command:
ntv2_file -o mne.gsa mne.gsb
If the program is used to copy one file to another, then only one input file can be named on the command line. If it is used to list, dump, or validate files, then multiple files can be specified.
Note that when writing a new file, the input and output filenames may refer to the same file. This is convienient for "cleaning up" a file for distribution.
The "ntv2_cvt" program is a sample program illustrating how to use NTv2 files and the ntv2 transform routines to do either a forward or an inverse transformation.
The usage (from executing "ntv2_cvt -help") is:
Usage: ntv2_cvt [options] ntv2file [lat lon] ...
Options:
-?, -help Display help
-r Reversed data (lon lat) instead of (lat lon)
-d Read shift data on the fly (no load of data)
-i Inverse transformation
-f Forward transformation (default)
-c val Conversion: degrees-per-unit (default is 1)
-s str Use str as output separator (default is " ")
-p file Read points from file (default is "-" or stdin)
-e wlon slat elon nlat Specify extent
If no coordinate pairs are specified on the command line, then
they are read one per line from the specified data file.
This program can use either a GSB or a GSA file, so it can be useful in testing an ascii file prior to converting it to a binary file for distribution.
Examples of use:
ntv2_cvt -f mne.gsb 42 19
>> 42.00029960410205 18.99494761687853
ntv2_cvt -i mne.gsb 42 19
>> 41.99970017877432 19.00505294762521
ntv2_cvt -f mne.gsb 42 19 | ntv2_cvt -i mne.gsb
>> 42 19
ntv2_cvt -i mne.gsb 42 19 | ntv2_cvt -f mne.gsb
>> 42 19
This section describes the syntax of an ascii NTv2 file (a GSA file).
Rules for ascii files are:
-
Anything following a # will be considered a comment and will be discarded.
-
Whitespace is used to delimit tokens in each line, but extraneous whitespace outside of quotes is ignored.
-
Blank lines are discarded. This is done after removing any comments and all leading and trailing whitespace.
-
Overview and sub-file records each consist of 11 lines, and each line contains a name and a value. The names must be as specified, and the lines must appear in the order specified.
-
Grid-shift records contain either two or four floating point numbers: lat-shift lon-shift [ lat-accuracy lon-accuracy ] If the accuracies are not specified, they are assumed to be 0.
-
All names and string values have a maximum length of 8 characters, and will be silently truncated if longer.
-
All floating point numbers are displayed with a '.' as the decimal separator. This is because these files could be used anywhere, and so must be locale-neutral.
Text files will be read in properly even if decimal separators other than a '.' are used (and they match the separators for the current locale), but they will always be written out using a decimal point. This allows ease in creating an ascii file using programs that can't output locale-neutral number strings.
A description of the fields in each record type is as follows.
Overview record fields:
name type description -------- ------ --------------------------------------------- NUM_OREC number Number of overview record fields - must be 11 NUM_SREC number Number of sub-file record fields - must be 11 NUM_FILE number Number of sub-files GS_TYPE string Grid-shift units: "SECONDS", "MINUTES", or "DEGREES" VERSION string Version ID of distortion model SYSTEM_F string From reference system SYSTEM_T string To reference system MAJOR_F double From semi-major axis (in meters) MINOR_F double From semi-minor axis (in meters) MAJOR_T double To semi-major axis (in meters) MINOR_T double To semi-minor axis (in meters)
Notes:
1. There is nothing in the Canadian documentation describing
the content of the VERSION, SYSTEM_F, and SYSTEM_T fields.
However, all the Canadian NTv2 files specify "VERSION NTv2.0".
2. Interestingly, all Canadian files use DATUM_F and DATUM_T
instead of SYSTEM_F and SYSTEM_T, even though it is their
specification. Don't do that.
3. All published NTv2 files that we have seen have a GS_TYPE of
"SECONDS". This has the advantage that the latitude, longitude,
and increment values in the sub-file records are then usually
whole numbers.
Sub-file record fields:
name type description -------- ------ --------------------------------------------- SUB_NAME string Sub-file name PARENT string Parent file name or "NONE" CREATED string Creation date UPDATED string Last revision date (may be blank) S_LAT double South latitude (in gs-units) N_LAT double North latitude (in gs-units) E_LONG double East longitude (in gs-units) Note: +west/-east W_LONG double West longitude (in gs-units) Note: +west/-east LAT_INC double Latitude increment (in gs-units) LONG_INC double Longitude increment (in gs-units) GS_COUNT number Number of grid-shift records following
Notes:
1. There is no description of the format of the CREATED and
UPDATED fields. However, for consistency, we recommend using
"YYYYMMDD", with the UPDATED field being blank if the data
has not been updated since the creation date. (Many published
NTv2 files have their UPDATED value the same as their CREATED
value.)
2. Longitudes are reversed from normal usage, with values
west of Greenwich being positive, and values east of Greenwich
being negative. This is probably because all of Canada (the
creators of this file format) is west of Greenwich.
3. Parent files may not overlap, but they may touch at an edge
or a corner. The same rule applies to each generation of
sub-files. Sub-files must properly nest inside their parents.
Grid-shift record:
Two or four numbers per line:
Latitude shift (in gs-units)
Longitude shift (in gs-units)
Latitude accuracy (in meters ) - optional
Longitude accuracy (in meters ) - optional
Notes:
1. Grid-shift records are stored in latitude rows ranging from South
to North, with the longitude entries in each row ranging from
East to West:
NROWS = ( (N_LAT - S_LAT ) / LAT_INC ) + 1
NCOLS = ( (W_LONG - E_LONG) / LONG_INC) + 1
GS_COUNT should be equal to (NROWS * NCOLS).
2. The longitude shift value is positive-west / negative-east.
3. Many published NTv2 files have all their accuracy values set
to either 0 or -1, which we assume indicates that no accuracy
data is provided. No GIS software that we know of makes use of
the accuracy data.
4. If accuracy values are not specified, they will be set to 0.
End record:
END
Example (from the mne.gsa file):
NUM_OREC 11
NUM_SREC 11
NUM_FILE 1
GS_TYPE SECONDS
VERSION NTv2.0
SYSTEM_F RS_MNE
SYSTEM_T ETRS89
MAJOR_F 6377397.155
MINOR_F 6356078.963
MAJOR_T 6378137.0
MINOR_T 6356752.314
SUB_NAME RS_MNE
PARENT NONE
CREATED 09-02-12
UPDATED 09-02-12
S_LAT 150585.0
N_LAT 156855.0
E_LONG -73410.0
W_LONG -66270.0
LAT_INC 165.0
LONG_INC 210.0
GS_COUNT 1365
1.28485203 18.76392555 0.0 0.0
1.279158 18.73803139 0.0 0.0
...
END
This library contains the following API methods:
ntv2_filetype() Determine the filetype of an NTv2 file (binary or ascii) ntv2_errmsg() Convert an error code to a string ntv2_load_file() Load an NTv2 file into memory ntv2_write_file() Write an NTv2 object to a file ntv2_delete() Delete an NTv2 object ntv2_validate() Validate the contents of an NTv2 file ntv2_dump() Dump the contents of an NTv2 file ntv2_list() List the headers in an NTv2 file ntv2_find_rec() Find an NTv2 record for a point (debugging call) ntv2_forward() Do a forward transformation on an array of points ntv2_inverse() Do an inverse transformation on an array of points ntv2_transform() Do a fwd/inv transformation on an array of points
This library is documented in detail here.
Find a bug or want to request a new feature? Please let us know by submitting an issue.
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Copyright 2010-2013 Esri
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
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A copy of the license is available in the repository's license.txt file.
[](Esri Tags: NTV2 transformation) [](Esri Language: C)