topic Choosing a Coordinate System in Geoprocessing Questions

Choosing a Coordinate System

DanJensen1 — Wed, 08 Apr 2020 10:10:24 GMT

Greetings, I am a forester trying to answer a cartography question

A client has asked for a file of their management overlaid with latitude bands in 0.1 degree increments.

Their management area is best represented in UTM Zone 11N and what I typically deliver their products in, and I had a colleague generate bands of latitude for me, but they came in WGS 1984. If I project the WGS84 file to Zone 11N then I have a lot of distortion at the midpoints of the latitude bands (this was expected), so I would like to minimize the distortion.

Is there a "best option" or a middle ground that I could project these files to that would minimize the latitude distortions and still give me the area calculations I would expect from Zone 11N, or keep them close?

Thanks and best regards.

Dan

Re: Choosing a Coordinate System

DanPatterson_Retired — Wed, 08 Apr 2020 11:52:19 GMT

If the latitude bands look strange, they may not have enough points to be well represented, you might want to consider using

Geodetic Densify—Data Management toolbox | Documentation

to help maintain their shape when being projected

Re: Choosing a Coordinate System

DavidPike — Wed, 08 Apr 2020 11:54:19 GMT

The latitude 'distortions' are really just a product of overlaying a geographic coordinate system grid onto a projected coordinate system. Any attempt to 'straighten out' the latitude bands will distort the data accordingly.

I'd be tempted to educate the customer, and perhaps use an MGRS grid system instead.