# PROJ.4 - Cartographic Projections Library

This web page relates to the PROJ.4 Cartographic Projections library originally written by Gerald Evenden then of the USGS. The primary version of this web page can be found at http://www.remotesensing.org/proj.

## Download

The current development source is available by anonymous CVS. It can be checked out as the "proj" component. Review the OSRS CVS HOWTO if you need more information on using OSRS anonymous CVS.

The following files are available from the proj ftp directory:

- proj-4.4.4.tar.gz or proj-4.4.4.zip : Current source release.

- proj-nad27-1.1.tar.gz: US and Canadian datum shift grids - untar in the nad directory before configuring to add NAD27/NAD83 datum conversion.

- PROJ.4-4.4.1-1.i586.rpm: Binary distribution for Intel Linux (glibc 2.1).

- PROJ.4 in a Debian Package.

- PROJ.4.3.3.tar.gz: The last PROJ 4.3 release produced by Gerald Evenden (classic PROJ.4).

- from_kai: A snapshot of everything on the kai.er.usgs.gov/pub/PROJ.4 directory as of March/2000.

- OF90-284.pdf (2.7MB): The main users manual for PROJ; however, this dates from PROJ.3 - the addendums PROJ.4.3.pdf (9.7MB), PROJ.4.3.I2.pdf (2MB), and SWISS.pdf (78KB) contain important additional information.

- proj command manpage

## Mailing List and Bugs

This mailing list is for development and user discussions of the PROJ.4 library.

To subscribe send mail to majordomo@remotesensing.org, with no subject. In the body type:

`subscribe osrs-proj`

To unsubscribe send mail to majordomo@remotesensing.org, with no subject, and in the body type:

`unsubscribe osrs-proj`

To post an email to this list, send email to: osrs-proj@remotesensing.org. To review previous posts visit the web archive.

Bugs can be entered and can be viewed in BugZilla.

## Plans

PROJ.4 is in active use by GRASS, MapServer, OGDI and OGRCoordinateTransformation as well as various other projects (please let me know about other projects using PROJ.4!).

Since work started on the PROJ.4.4.x series of releases, various bux fixes have been incorporated, and the build system has been overhauled to use autoconf/libtool. Support has also been added for 3 and 7 parameter datum shifts, the PJ* structure now also carries datum information and PJ* can be considered a full coordinate system (geographic coordinate systems are also now supported with the +proj=latlong pseudo-projection). The new cs2cs program performs a similar function to the proj program, but transforming from any one coordinate system to another. The new pj_transform() is used to access the extended coordinate system to coordinate system transformation with datum shifting. A mapping file (epsg) has also been introduced mapping most EPSG ( www.epsg.org) coordinate systems to PROJ.4 format.

Future plans for PROJ.4 will hopefully include better online documentation, refinement of datum shifting support, splitting of projects.h into public and private components and extension of the external programming API for greater convenience in handling coordinate systems from applications.

If you are a user of PROJ.4, and/or are interested in contributing please drop me a line and join the mailing list.

## License

PROJ.4 has been placed under an MIT license. I believe this to be as close as possible to public domain while satisfying those who say that a copyright notice is required in some countries. The COPYING file read as follows:

All source, data files and other contents of the PROJ.4 package are available under the following terms. Note that the PROJ 4.3 and earlier was "public domain" as is common with US government work, but apparently this is not a well defined legal term in many countries. I am placing everything under the following MIT style license because I believe it is effectively the same as public domain, allowing anyone to use the code as they wish, including making proprietary derivatives.

Though I have put my own name as copyright holder, I don't mean to imply I did the work. Essentially all work was done by Gerald Evenden.

     --------------

     Copyright (c) 2000, Frank Warmerdam

     Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
     copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
     to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
     the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
     and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
     Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

     The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
     in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

     THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS
     OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
     FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL
     THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
     LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
     FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER
     DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

## Related Resources

- GeoTIFF Projections List which includes relationship of many projections to EPSG, PROJ.4, and OGC standards.

- GMT - Generic Mapping Tools, includes reprojection services.

- Coordinates, Datums and Transformations: An assortment of links and information.

- GCTPC: The other widely used projection package from te USGS.

- Geotrans: a projections and datum shift program from NIMA. Available from OSRS CVS as osrs/geotrans.

- MapRef: Assorted general information on projections, and related topics.