The North American Redefinition in Perspective

The redefinition is an engineering application of the pure or basic science accomplishments in geodesy since 1927. Assuming that a geocentric coordinate system is adopted, it will mark the end of the era of best-fitting regional or continental surfaces and the advent of an era of one-world spheroids. To ensure that the resources necessary to see it through become available, it is essential that popular support for redefinition be forthcoming from users of the redefined coordinates, such as provincial/state and urban governments. The confusion that comes with any change in coordinates will be minimized if the redefinition is completed so that redefined plane coordinates will be available when the conversion to metric units takes place.