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A spatial reference system (SRS) or coordinate reference system (CRS) is a coordinate-based local, regional or global system used to locate geographical entities. A spatial reference system defines a specific map projection, as well as transformations between different spatial reference systems. Spatial reference systems are defined by the OGC's Simple feature access using well-known text, and support has been implemented by several standards-based geographic information systems. Spatial reference systems can be referred to using a SRID integer, including EPSG codes defined by the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers. It is specified in ISO 19111:2007 Geographic information—Spatial referencing by coordinates, also published as OGC Abstract Specification, Topic 2: Spatial referencing by coordinate.
Contents
Examples
Some systems are:
Identifiers
A Spatial Reference System Identifier (SRID) is a unique value used to unambiguously identify projected, unprojected, and local spatial coordinate system definitions. These coordinate systems form the heart of all GIS applications.
Virtually all major spatial vendors have created their own SRID implementation or refer to those of an authority, such as the European Petroleum Survey Group (EPSG). (NOTE: As of 2005 the EPSG SRID values are now maintained by the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (OGP) Surveying & Positioning Committee).
SRIDs are the primary key for the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) spatial_ref_sys metadata table for the Simple Features for SQL Specification, Versions 1.1 and 1.2, which is defined as follows:
In spatially enabled databases (such as IBM DB2, IBM Informix, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle RDBMS, Teradata, PostGIS and SQL Anywhere), SRIDs are used to uniquely identify the coordinate systems used to define columns of spatial data or individual spatial objects in a spatial column (depending on the spatial implementation). SRIDs are typically associated with a well known text (WKT) string definition of the coordinate system (SRTEXT, above). From the Well Known Text Wikipedia page, “A WKT string for a spatial reference system describes the datum, geoid, coordinate system, and map projection of the spatial objects”. Here are two common coordinate systems with their EPSG SRID value followed by their well known text:
UTM, Zone 17N, NAD27 — SRID 2029:
WGS84 — SRID 4326
SRID values associated with spatial data can be used to constrain spatial operations — for instance, spatial operations cannot be performed between spatial objects with differing SRIDs in some systems, or trigger coordinate system transformations between spatial objects in others.