ArcGIS Earth 1.9 displays "No Spatial Reference" for GeoTIFF

[ChrisNance]

I have a GeoTIFF that I used "Defined Projection" for using ArcMap. It's NAD_1983_StatePlane_Texas_Central_FIPS_4203_Feet.

But when I try to bring it in to ArcGIS Earth, it says "No Spatial Reference." ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro correctly indentify the spatial reference.

I used the "Project Raster" tool in ArcMap to reproject it to Web Mercator, and ArcGIS Earth brings that in correctly.

Anyone experiencing anything similar?

[Mandy_Li]

Hi Chris,

ArcGIS Earth always displays data in the WGS84 Geographic Coordinate System (GCS). Web Mercator is used as the default projected coordinate system (PCS) for incoming services and data. You can change the spatial reference in Settings and restart the application. However, these are the coordinate system options that currently supported in ArcGIS Earth.

Thanks,

Mandy

[ChrisNance]

Yes. That would be the coordinate system of the ArcGIS Earth workspace. But ArcGIS Earth can still bring in data with various spatial references and reproject them into WGS84 or Web Mercator.

For example, I can add a shapefile to ArcGIS Earth that is projected in State Plane (or any other projection), and ArcGIS Earth correctly brings that into WGS84.

My only issue is with GeoTIFFs and the “No Spatial Reference” error.

[Mandy_Li]

Hi Chris,

For the same data, if it displayed well in ArcGIS Pro, then it's expected to work well in ArcGIS Earth as well. Otherwise, it could be considered as a bug. It is possible for you to share a sample data with us to further investigation?

Thank you!

Mandy

[IanMurray]

Chris,

I don't use ArcEarth, but I have an idea why it might be reading no spatial reference when you bring in the file after using define projection.

GeoTIFF is a file format that natively stores its spatial information in a header.  However, the define projection tool doesn't change the header for the the .tif, it just adds a world file with the spatial information (a .tfw).  If ArcEarth is expecting the the spatial information in the header and not a world file and reads no spatial information in the header then it could return no spatial reference error.  The Project Raster tool creates a new raster and when doing so writes the spatial data to the header(At least on a test I did), which is why that one may be coming in correctly.

I couldn't find any documentation on how ArcEarth reads spatial information from rasters, but this is what came to mind for me.

[ChrisNance]

Although the "Define Projection" creates a .tfw world file, it ALSO writes the coordinate system to the TIFF header. It also creates .tif.aux and .tif.ovr files. Moreover, the world file does not contain coordinate system information, only unit-less xy coordinates for insertion point, rotation and scale.

I've confirmed that "Define Projection" is writing to the header by copying only the .tif file into a separate directory and bringing that into ArcMap/ArcGIS Pro/ArcGIS Earth 1.7. Each software correctly recognizes the coordinate system without the .tfw, .tif.aux or .tif.ovr files.

However, ArcGIS Earth 1.9 does not recognize the spatial reference with or without the sidecar files.

[JesperSvedberg]

What's the outcome of this thread? Was there a bug created or did you find a reason why some GeoTIFF's not work in ArcGIS Earth? 

I receive the same message "No spatial reference" when trying to add some  GeoTIFF 's (LZW-compression) in ArcGIS Earth 1.11 but not in ArcGIS Earth 1.8. Other GeoTIFF files with LZW-compression works fine in both versions.

[JesperSvedberg]

The GeoTiff files NOT working have this Coordinate System setting in the header;

Coordinate System is:
LOCAL_CS["SWEREF99 TM",
GEOGCS["SWEREF99",
DATUM["unknown",
SPHEROID["unretrievable - using WGS84",6378137,298.257223563]],
PRIMEM["Greenwich",0],
UNIT["degree",0.0174532925199433]],
AUTHORITY["EPSG","3006"],
UNIT["metre",1,
AUTHORITY["EPSG","9001"]]]

The ones working have this settings;

Coordinate System is:
PROJCS["SWEREF99 TM",
GEOGCS["SWEREF99",
DATUM["unknown",
SPHEROID["GRS 1980",6378137,298.2572221010042,
AUTHORITY["EPSG","7019"]],
TOWGS84[0,0,0,0,0,0,0],
AUTHORITY["EPSG","6619"]],
PRIMEM["Greenwich",0],
UNIT["degree",0.0174532925199433],
AUTHORITY["EPSG","4619"]],
PROJECTION["Transverse_Mercator"],
PARAMETER["latitude_of_origin",0],
PARAMETER["central_meridian",15],
PARAMETER["scale_factor",0.9996],
PARAMETER["false_easting",500000],
PARAMETER["false_northing",0],
UNIT["metre",1,
AUTHORITY["EPSG","9001"]],
AUTHORITY["EPSG","3006"]]