What ISPs taketh away, the spatial community giveth back

By Amy Smith

The State Plane Coordinate System is comprised of 120+ geographic zones across the US. The system, developed in the 1930s by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, is a commonly used mapping standard for government agencies and those who work with them.

There’s a website that I’ve had bookmarked for as long as I can remember. It’s simply a list of State Plane zones and the US counties that fall within each. At the top of the page are state links that redirect further down on the site, but I rarely use those. I usually just cmd+f and search for the county I’m looking for. Even if I know the zone already, the site gives me a sense of security when I’m making a map that uses the US-based coordinate system – like the feeling one gets when going back to double check that the stove is off and the door is locked.

There are most certainly other ways to look up State Plane zones, but this one, hosted on a stranger’s personal website, is the one I like best. Maybe it’s the simplicity of the site, its Web 1.0 design, the fact that the person who made it picked tan for the background color. Maybe it’s the nostalgia of going back to something I’ve used time and time again, and always has what I want – like a well-loved t-shirt.

A while back, I went to the State Plane site only to find the site could no longer be reached. Russell Edward Taylor, III, experienced something similar, but instead of chalking it up as a mystery like I did, got in touch with the owner, Rick King, and asked about hosting the site on his own domain. Lucky for those of us who’ve relied on it as a useful reference, it continues to live on on Russell’s personal website. Russell also did some investigating and found nearly 400 links to the State Plane site from across the geospatial community, from universities to professionals to students. Inspired by his initiative, I decided to reach out to Russell, who put me in touch with Rick, to learn about the site’s story.

Rick King

Q: Rick, thank you for creating the State Plane site. Could you tell us a bit about yourself, and why you created the site?

A: I am currently retired having worked in GIS and Land Surveying since the 1980s. I was a Professional Land Surveyor licensed in Utah with most of my “experience” being while working in Indianapolis, Indiana, and ending after a 4-year stint working as a GIS Analyst in Los Alamos, New Mexico, documenting some hazardous waste remediation on a material disposal area that was used at the time of the Manhattan Project. I also helped with the development of an Acequia GIS for the Taos Soil and Water Conservation District in Taos, New Mexico.

My initial work in GIS was to allocate mapping resources to provide the base layers for large regional geographic information systems being developed primarily by the various utility companies. In the pre-internet days this work was accomplished by telephone inquiry starting at a state geological office or somewhere to see if there was any existing mapping available. GIS has evolved since then, but, just wanted to throw that in to let people know that GIS was existing before the world wide web.

I created the site as a reference for myself to help me at work. In the course of my work I received hundreds of datasets most all of which came without metadata and without any identification of the coordinate system on which they were based. The website I created in basic HTML would give me starting points to make the coordinate system identification. At the time of its creation, there really wasn’t anything else online to fulfill the need. I wanted to reference both the NAD 27 and NAD 83 systems, and found those references listed in the state statutes when I could find them online. The UTM references and the MS Excel spreadsheet were added later.

The state plane coordinate system page was part of a multi-part GIS reference page titled “GIS Landbase Information and Data Links”, which provided weblinks to the same.

The awful tan color of the background was carefully chosen for providing less eye-strain.

I hosted the site for many years as my contribution to the internet.

Q: Russell found almost 400 links to the State Plane page on other websites. Did you realize the site was being used by so many others in the geospatial community?

A: I did. It was Comcast’s decision to withdraw hosting personal web pages which is why it went down.

Q: When did you create the site? Looking at it now, is there anything you would change?

A: I created the site in 1999, and most of its creation is covered in the metadata I created for the page. Actually, I was one of the first people to quit using the page, so changes would have to be made by someone else.

Q: What was your reaction when Russell reached out about hosting the site. Were you surprised at all?

A: I was hoping that someone would step up and host the page as there were some educational institutions using it as a reference. A big thanks to Russell for stepping forward.

Q: Now being retired from a long career in land surveying, what do you do with your spare time? Do you have any hobbies?

A: I spend a good deal of time day trading on the stock markets. The goal is to grow my retirement funds specifically so that I can afford to build a new house. Yep, that’s the goal!

Q: A geohipster is someone who works anywhere along the broad spectrum of geospatial data and applications. Usually they’re described as being on the outskirts of mainstream GIS, thinking outside of the box, and doing something interesting with maps. Would you call yourself a geohipster? Why or why not.

A: No, I just never got involved with the analytics of GIS to get that excited about it. But…

Q: Rick, thank you for your contributions to the geospatial community, and for helping bring well-documented GIS resources online throughout your career. Any words of wisdom you’d like to leave with our global readership?

A:  The world has become so dynamic. Everything is changing. People and politics, the environment, business and trade, and world economies. GIS is the only science that is capable of accumulating all the data, visualizing the data, comprehending the data, and finally using the data to forecast future models that will benefit us all. Population management, food management, resource management will be extremely vital in the near future. There will be plenty of opportunities to resolve what most of us believe are foreseeable problems, especially having clean water and adequate food for everyone.

Russell Edward Taylor, III

Q: From your resume, I see that you’re a Senior GeoSpatial Analyst at CoreLogic. Could you tell us a bit about what you do there?

A: I’m part of a group that works on a suite of data products used by clients for location intelligence. It’s based on a standardized, nationwide parcel dataset derived from point and polygon data acquired in every data format, attribute layout, and projection under the sun. Taken together, our little team likely has more experience than anyone with the quirks of the many different ways parcel mapping is done. I’m on the more technical end these days, maintaining internal tools in Python, preparing custom data deliveries for clients, managing our metadata and documentation, plus a variety of internal process-improvement initiatives that have immersed me in the database world more than I ever imagined possible when I got into GIS in the late 90s.

Q: When did you realize the State Plane site was no longer live, and what inspired you to reach out to Rick?

A: It was in July 2015; a colleague brought it to my attention when they went looking for the state plane zone of a county they were working with. After I hurriedly cached a copy from the Internet Archive for use by my team and myself, it occured to me that there were probably others out there wrestling with similar data that would miss it too. I have a personal website, and since the State Plane site is just one simple page, I realized that it would be very easy for me to keep it available to the world. Over the years, I’ve benefited greatly from the community-mindedness of others, so it seemed like a good way to do my part.

Personally, I favor open software, data, and public licenses that make works more widely available for use, but I’m also aware that not everyone does. Rather than take the risk of running afoul of an unknown benefactor by re-hosting the site without permission, I decided to do it by the book. I thought it was especially important to do it that way for two reasons: first, it would be a full, verbatim copy, and not anything that might fall under fair use if I ever had to defend it; second, if I republished it without a notice at the original URL, those who had been using it might have a harder time finding their way to its new home. So, after gathering a bit of courage, I shot off a short message that happily found a friendly response.

Q: Have you received any notes from others who’ve found the state plane site on ret3.net?

A: I have, at a rate of a few each year. Most are simple thank yous from visitors glad to find it still alive somewhere. Most emails come from businesses domains, almost as many from .edu accounts. I’ve had a couple interesting ones that led to a little research about parts of the page I’d never used for myself, most memorably as to just what an ADSZONE is.

Q: Enlighten us?

A: Oddly, I received not one but two questions about this within a few months of each other in late 2016. As near as I can tell, ADSZONE stands for Automated Digitizing System Zone, named for the tool the Bureau of Land Management used to convert NAD 27 maps to NAD 83, along with other subsequent projects, and the regions used for that project. Now knowing more about Rick’s experience, the inclusion of this bit of information makes more sense! If you’re curious (or very, very bored, although there is some fine early 90s clipart to be seen therein) the manual is online here: https://archive.org/details/automateddigitiz00unit. I don’t believe this numbering system is used very widely anymore, although in the surveying business (the field of both of my interlocutors on this topic), encountering disused references is pretty common.

Q: When you’re not being a geospatial analyst, what do you like to do in your spare time? From your website I glean that beyond maps, you also like comics and bikes.

A: I got my start reading comics with my dad’s Silver Age DC collection, but fell out with constant reboots of the modern era, so these days I’m far more likely to pick up self-contained stories, or at least serials that aren’t under pressure to run forever. Of course, I’ve always had a weakness for maps in comics: the World of Kamandi, Krypton, Marvel’s New York City, Prison Island and other small-town memoir settings, even the dotted-line paths in Family Circus.

I’ve been a daily bike commuter for 8 years (and 110 pounds), following a 25-year hiatus from pedaling. I ride a modest 5 miles round trip on my commuter bike, plus weekend trailriding on my mountain bike and recently longer road bike events. Interestingly, all my bikes are folding models. Although it’s not closely related to my professional niche in geography, planning, land use, and transit issues have always fascinated me, more so since bike infrastructure became a rather personal concern!

I also enjoy Austin’s energetic music and craft brewing scenes, with friends in the former (go see Danger*Cakes, Bird Casino, and Oh Antonio & His Imaginary Friends!) and my neighborhood being taken over by the latter, which happens to combine well with cycling.

Q: Are you a geohipster? Why or why not?

A: That’s hard to say; most of my work is not what would come to mind for that label — it’s pretty traditional and desktop-oriented, working with shapefiles in proprietary software, focused on fundamentals of data integrity for the end user. GeoNormcore, perhaps. The GeoJSON, FOSS4G, webmapped world is something I encounter mostly at conferences and in occasional at-home dabblings. That said, I am planning a Dymaxion tattoo, so perhaps I have a bit of geohipster in me after all.

Q: Any final words of wisdom you’d like to leave with us?

A: Although I always have to remind myself of it when the opportunity arises, folks are far more willing to help and collaborate than you’d think. Muster your gumption, screw up your courage, steel your nerves and ask nicely. I know it works on me.