QGIS » QGIS Application

FYI

creating the location (ex. epsg 3763) with wingrass (6.4.0) returns the expected g.region result

g.region -p                                                                     
projection: 99 (Transverse Mercator)
zone:       0
datum:      etrs89
ellipsoid:  grs80

opening with wingrass a different location created with QGIS (with the same epsg) r.region returns

g.region -p                                                                     
projection: 99 (Transverse Mercator)
zone:       0
datum:      ** unknown (default: WGS84) **
ellipsoid:  international

The reason will be that several datums are associated to EPSG 3003:

g.proj -c epsg=3003 datumtrans=-1 location=loc_epsg_3003
---
1
Used in whole rome40 region
towgs84=-225.000,-65.000,9.000
Default 3-Parameter Transformation (May not be optimum for older datums; use this only if no more appropriate options are available.)
---
2
Used in Italy (Peninsular Part)
towgs84=-104.1,-49.1,-9.9,0.971,-2.917,0.714,-11.68
Accuracy 3-4m
---
3
Used in Italy (Sardinia)
towgs84=-168.6,-34.0,38.6,-0.374,-0.679,-1.379,-9.48
Accuracy 3-4m
---
4
Used in Italy (Sicily)
towgs84=-50.2,-50.4,84.8,-0.690,-2.012,0.459,-28.08
Accuracy 3-4m

When creating such a new location (the same applies to all projections with multiple datum
choices), the user must be presented with a related datum dialog to choose from.

The same applies, for example, for epsg 3763?

Here the test with 3763:

g.proj -c epsg=3763 datumtrans=-1 location=loc_epsg_3763
Location loc_epsg_3763 created!
exit

grass64 ~/grassdata/loc_epsg_3763/PERMANENT/
GRASS 6.4.1svn (loc_epsg_3763):~ > g.proj -w
PROJCS["Transverse Mercator",
    GEOGCS["grs80",
        DATUM["European_Terrestrial_Reference_System_1989",
            SPHEROID[[Geodetic_Reference_System_1980]],
            TOWGS84[0,0,0,0,0,0,0]],
        PRIMEM[[Greenwich]],
        UNIT[[degree]],
    PROJECTION[[Transverse_Mercator]],
    PARAMETER[[latitude_of_origin]],
    PARAMETER[[central_meridian]],
    PARAMETER[[scale_factor]],
    PARAMETER[[false_easting]],
    PARAMETER[[false_northing]],
    UNIT[[Meter]]

Compared to http://spatialreference.org/ref/epsg/3763/prettywkt/ it looks as expected in GRASS.

Concerning the original report:

projection: 99 (Transverse Mercator)
zone:       0
datum:      towgs84=-104.1,-49.1,-9.9,0.971,-2.917,0.714,-11.68
ellipsoid:  international
...

that is (see http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/browser/grass/branches/releasebranch_6_4/lib/gis/datumtransform.table) the first choice here:

63    rome40  "towgs84=-104.1,-49.1,-9.9,0.971,-2.917,0.714,-11.68" "Italy (Peninsular Part)" "Accuracy 3-4m" 
64    rome40  "towgs84=-168.6,-34.0,38.6,-0.374,-0.679,-1.379,-9.48" "Italy (Sardinia)" "Accuracy 3-4m" 
65    rome40  "towgs84=-50.2,-50.4,84.8,-0.690,-2.012,0.459,-28.08" "Italy (Sicily)" "Accuracy 3-4m" 

Something in the QGIS method to create a new location with multiple datum choices
seems to be broken.

In QGIS we used a different approach: we defined additional ad hoc projections (e.g. code 40000) with the additional datum. It used to work, so I think it has been broken by some changes recently.