idea Clarify UTM coordinate display in map status bar in ArcGIS Pro Ideas

Clarify UTM coordinate display in map status bar

ElleryChan — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 18:33:57 GMT

I was recently confused by the UTM coordinate display in the status bar of the ArcGIS Pro scene view. I had a new project, and I set the default CRS to UTM Zone 10N because I was working on the San Francisco area. I switched the coordinate display in the status bar to show UTM coordinates and zoomed into my AOI. I was surprised and confused when the coordinate display said "10S ###### #######" (where # were some numerical coordinates).

I thought that maybe I had accidentally selected UTM Zone 10S (those were the only choices for UTM Zone 10). After talking to support, I was informed that there is another level of grid lettering in the Northern hemisphere called the Military Grid Reference System (MGRS). If I had looked at Seattle it would have said "10T ##### ######".

There is already another coordinate display mode for MGRS that displays the MGRS cell letters, so I think the UTM display mode should display the zone number and N for North or S for South, to follow the CRS naming connvention. Someone who wants to see the MGRS letters can switch to the MGRS display format.

Re: Clarify UTM coordinate display in map status bar

RoseF — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 19:57:43 GMT

It would be nice if the coordinate display area could show some info about the spatial reference system being displayed. Or maybe have that be another setting for that lower bar in the map view?

Re: Clarify UTM coordinate display in map status bar

RTPL_AU — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 23:17:15 GMT

Concur.

Show the map coordinate system and the datum/projection of the UTM values as shown. Add a shortcut to directly go to the map properties > Coordinate Systems and Transformations.

As Pro likes to automatically do things in this space, not having to go to map properties and/or transformations will make users more efficient and prevent mistakes due to assuming what you've set before has remained so.

Re: Clarify UTM coordinate display in map status bar

Bud — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 05:19:57 GMT

Re: Clarify UTM coordinate display in map status bar

ElleryChan — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 17:23:54 GMT

@Bud, Thanks for that pointer. I did search the forum before posting, but didn't find that one. That user experienced similar confusion to mine and got a similar response, which was an explanation about how it was showing different information, i.e., the letters for the finer latitude designations that run from A to Z.

So, while the information being shown is correct, the notation looks like the notation used to select the UTM zones when choosing a CRS. It causes confusion, so the display of the coordinates should be changed. I'm recommending that either there is an additional selection in the dropdown, so maybe one choice is "UTM N/S" and another is "UTM A-Z", or that they change the coordinate display formatting to be something like "UTM N(T) 123456.789 987654.321".