Working with Coordinate Systems in ArcGIS 10

Description

When you add a spatial dataset to a GIS map and features display in the wrong location or not at all, a coordinate system issue is often to blame. This course provides an in-depth look at coordinate systems and common challenges that arise when working with data stored in different coordinate systems. You will learn practical guidelines for solving these challenges as well as techniques to correct problems caused by unknown and missing coordinate system information.

• Watch a course preview demo

Who Should Attend

Students and professionals who want to understand fundamental coordinate system concepts in order to prevent data alignment errors and error propagation in measurements and analysis operations.

Learn How To

• Determine the coordinate system used by a spatial dataset.
• Assign a coordinate system to a geodatabase feature class created from tabular data.
  
• Define a coordinate system for a shapefile that is missing its projection file.
• Correct data misalignments caused by datum differences.
• Assess whether a particular datum transformation is optimal for the data being mapped.
• Choose an appropriate datum transformation for your data to ensure features display in the correct locations.

To complete course exercises, you need the following software:

• ArcGIS 10.0 for Desktop (ArcView, ArcEditor, or ArcInfo)

Coordinate systems overview

Identifying location on a globe

• Locate cities
• Anatomy of a geographic coordinate system
• Assign a geographic coordinate system

Identifying location on a flat map

• Assign false eastings
• Popular projected coordinate systems
• Notating location
• Test your understanding

How datums affect your map

• Local datums
• Earth-centered datums
• The process of datum transformation
• On-the-fly transformations
• Troubleshoot datum shift

Troubleshooting data alignment problems

• Solve data alignment problems

• Completion of ArcGIS Desktop I: Getting Started with GIS or Getting Started with GIS (for ArcGIS 10) or equivalent knowledge is required.
• Completion of Basics of Geographic Coordinate Systems (for ArcGIS 10) and Basics of Map Projections (for ArcGIS 10) is recommended.