The New Coordinates Are Getting Real: NGS Releases Modernized Surveying Tools for Public Testing

For years, surveyors have known that one of the biggest changes to the nation's coordinate system was coming.

Now we can actually start working with the tools that will support it.

On September 15, 2026, NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey announced the public beta release of the core products and tools that will support the modernized National Spatial Reference System, or NSRS. NGS is specifically encouraging surveyors, engineers, GIS professionals, mapping agencies and software developers to test the tools using real-world workflows.

In other words, this is no longer simply a future change discussed at surveying conferences.

The infrastructure needed to put the new system into practice is taking shape.

What Is Changing?

The current National Spatial Reference System includes familiar datums such as NAD 83 for horizontal positioning and NAVD 88 for elevations.

The modernized system will eventually replace them.

Four new terrestrial reference frames—including NATRF2022 for the North American tectonic plate—will replace NAD 83. NGS states that these frames are designed around modern satellite positioning and account for movement of the Earth's tectonic plates over time.

For vertical measurements, NAPGD2022, the North American-Pacific Geopotential Datum of 2022, is being developed to replace NAVD 88.

That is a very big change behind something that, to most people, looks deceptively simple:

a coordinate.

New Tools Are Now Available for Testing

Among the beta resources released by NGS are:

Data Delivery System (DDS)

A new gateway for finding, viewing and accessing geodetic data and information about stations and survey marks.

OPUS Static

A modernized version of the familiar GPS/GNSS processing workflow that can provide solutions in the new reference frames.

NGS Coordinate Conversion and Transformation Tool (NCAT)

A tool designed to transform and convert coordinates between the current and modernized systems.

NAPGD2022 resources

Tools and data associated with the new vertical reference system that will ultimately replace NAVD 88.

There is one important caveat: these are still beta products.

NGS specifically says the current releases are intended for testing and evaluation and are not yet authoritative for operational work. The current NSRS remains the official U.S. reference system while testing and transition continue.

Why Should Anyone Besides Surveyors Care?

Most property owners will never need to know what NATRF2022 means.

They do, however, rely every day on information tied to coordinate and elevation systems.

Those systems underpin:

• Boundary and topographic surveys

• Construction layout

• Road and utility design

• Floodplain work

• GIS databases

• Aerial mapping

• Infrastructure records

• GPS/GNSS positioning

  
  

When the underlying reference system changes, professionals working with older and newer datasets will need to understand which system each coordinate came from.

A coordinate without its reference datum can become much less useful—and potentially misleading.

Surveying Has Always Been About More Than Finding a Point

Surveyors are sometimes pictured standing behind an instrument beside a road or walking through a field with a GPS receiver.

What is less visible is the enormous geodetic framework behind those measurements.

The modernization of the NSRS is essentially an update to that national framework, reflecting decades of advances in satellite positioning, geodesy and our understanding of how the Earth's surface moves.

The fact that NGS has now released its core beta tools represents an important step toward putting that new system into everyday professional practice.

At Abbie Jones Consulting, PSC, staying current with changes like these is part of providing reliable surveying and engineering information.

Technology changes.

Coordinate systems change.

But the goal remains the same: knowing precisely where things are—and making sure everyone involved in a project is working from the same information.

Sources: NOAA National Geodetic Survey, “Modernizing the National Spatial Reference System” and NGS Beta Products, September 2026.