We received a shipment of data from Esri for Philadelphia business locations. We needed it transformed from geographic coordinate system (lat/long) to Penna State Plane South (3702) coordinate system (in feet). Esri told us we have to do that ourselves.
Projections, coordinate systems, and transformations are always a little confusing for those of us who don't mess with them a lot. Esri's tool labeling doesn't help any.
We had a team huddle and decided we were not projecting a coordinate system -- we were transforming from one coordinate system to another. I looked in ArcToolbox under Data Management > Projections &
Transformations. There is no Transform tool. So I tried the only tool in there for Features: Project.
I opened the Project tool and ignored the options first time around. Got an error for not choosing the option:
Read the Help. The option is required if you are changing coordinate systems. Which is what we came here for in the first place.
How to choose?
Not sure. I saw no hints in the input or output coordinate system descriptions. So I used the first option on the list shown . Looks like to worked fine. This tells me where in State Plane:
1. Were we transforming or projecting? Or both?
2. Is "re-projecting" a necessary step in transforming a data set's coordinate system from one to another?
3. How do we decide which Geographic Transformation to apply?
I appreciate your comments.
