Creating a custom CRS with GeoTools

I needed to transform some spatial data into a custom CRS (a previously mentioned reference system from the CA DWR) in some Java code I’m writing to compute elevation profiles of river channels. I only had the CRS in proj4 format which, as far as I’m aware, is not supported directly by GeoTools. With a little help from some Python code, I was able to convert my proj4 definition, which looks like this:

+proj=utm +zone=10 +ellps=GRS80 +towgs84=0,0,0,0,0,0,0 +units=ft +no_defs

into its corresponding WKT format:

PROJCS[ "UTM Zone 10, Northern Hemisphere",
  GEOGCS["GRS 1980(IUGG, 1980)",
    DATUM["unknown",
       SPHEROID["GRS80",6378137,298.257222101],
       TOWGS84[0,0,0,0,0,0,0]
    ],
    PRIMEM["Greenwich",0],
    UNIT["degree",0.0174532925199433]
  ],
  PROJECTION["Transverse_Mercator"],
  PARAMETER["latitude_of_origin",0],
  PARAMETER["central_meridian",-123],
  PARAMETER["scale_factor",0.9996],
  PARAMETER["false_easting",1640419.947506562],
  PARAMETER["false_northing",0],
  UNIT["Foot (International)",0.3048]
]

Given this WKT format, you can create a custom CRS using the GeoTools CRSFactory class. After some hunting around, I discovered that you can use it like such:

String customWKT = "PROJCS[ \"UTM Zone 10, Northern Hemisphere\",\n" +
                    "  GEOGCS[\"GRS 1980(IUGG, 1980)\",\n" +
                    "    DATUM[\"unknown\"," +
                    "       SPHEROID[\"GRS80\",6378137,298.257222101]," +
                    "       TOWGS84[0,0,0,0,0,0,0]" +
                    "    ],\n" +
                    "    PRIMEM[\"Greenwich\",0],\n" +
                    "    UNIT[\"degree\",0.0174532925199433]\n" +
                    "  ],\n" +
                    "  PROJECTION[\"Transverse_Mercator\"],\n" +
                    "  PARAMETER[\"latitude_of_origin\",0],\n" +
                    "  PARAMETER[\"central_meridian\",-123],\n" +
                    "  PARAMETER[\"scale_factor\",0.9996],\n" +
                    "  PARAMETER[\"false_easting\",1640419.947506562],\n" +
                    "  PARAMETER[\"false_northing\",0],\n" +
                    "  UNIT[\"Foot (International)\",0.3048]\n" +
                    "]";
try {
  CRSFactory factory = ReferencingFactoryFinder.getCRSFactory(null);
  CoordinateReferenceSystem customCRS = factory.createFromWKT(customWKT);
} catch (FactoryException e) {
  e.printStackTrace();
}

Which will create a custom coordinate reference system without having to replace the epsg database with a properties file that contains all the default EPSG codes with your own added to it (which seemed like too much work for this use case.) Then you can use it anywhere you want like you’d use any other CRS object.