Your Coordinate System, Explained Simply

Every map of your property carries a coordinate system: WGS 84 / UTM Zone 14N. You can ignore it while exploring the viewer. An engineer, GIS analyst or CAD team will ask for it first.

The plain-English version

A coordinate system says where a point is on Earth, so your map and your engineer's software line up. It has two parts:

1. WGS 84 is the model of the Earth's shape your phone's GPS uses, which defines latitude and longitude.
2. UTM Zone 14N flattens a slice of the Earth onto a grid in meters. Zone 14N covers Central Texas, which is why your data uses it.

A 100-meter line on your map is 100 meters on the ground.

Why meters instead of latitude and longitude

Latitude and longitude find a place, but their units vary in distance. A flat grid in meters suits measuring, and CAD tools expect it.

When it matters to you

• Exploring the map: never.
• Handing data to an engineer, surveyor, or GIS or CAD team: a lot. Give them these two lines:

Horizontal: WGS 84 / UTM Zone 14N (EPSG:32614)

Vertical: WGS 84 ellipsoid heights

Heights

Every elevation we deliver is a WGS 84 ellipsoid height: contours, the point cloud, and every height and volume the viewer reads out. It is the platform's one vertical datum.

NAVD 88 sources, such as US 3DEP terrain, are converted through the GEOID18 grid first. If your team needs NAVD 88 heights, tell us up front: the two differ by about 26 m (85 ft) in Central Texas.

A note for the technical folks

Exported files (GeoTIFF/COG orthomosaics, LAS/LAZ point clouds, DXF contours) are georeferenced in WGS 84 / UTM 14N. They drop into QGIS, ArcGIS or CAD without hand-alignment. For another projection or a state-plane system, ask us.

Tip: This one line answers an engineer's first question:

Data is in WGS 84 / UTM Zone 14N (EPSG:32614), heights are WGS 84 ellipsoidal.

The important caveat

An accurate coordinate system makes your data positionally trustworthy for planning. It does not change what the data is:

This data is not a legal survey. Embry Solutions LLC does not perform land surveys. For boundary, subdivision, or title surveys, please consult a licensed Texas surveyor.