Near_analysis has planar method. Using Geodesic method gives very absurd results.

Question

I have a point and a polygon. I had to draw the shortest distance between the point and polygon. I used near_analysis with planar method to find the shortest point on the nearest point on the polygon. Planar method gave results as expected. Geodesic method is returning extremely strange results. Then XYtoLineManagement (which has Geodesic method as default) draws a straight line to the the nearest point on the polygon. I am very confused here. Its very unfortunate that arc doesnt provide Planar method in all tools. My area of work is very small and planar method is more than sufficient.

DanPatterson_Retired · Answer

when you are trying to create features that aren't in the coordinate system expected, I suspect you got the default, perhaps the coordinate system of the data frame rather than of another featureclass, hence the geometry would be totally different.  That's why I wanted to see what you had specified for all to confirm what happened rather than go by past experience

MarkusSchenardi_0-1605593977383.png

KarunDayal · Answer

Sir,

I think it was indeed the coordinate system problem. I created a geodatabase of UTM zone44n projection. And randomly zoomed in and created the features that you see above. But I am still confused exactly what went wrong.

Thankyou

DanPatterson_Retired · Answer

any luck on finding out the coordinate information?