I am looking to take an existing shape file to generate a new shape file with a different coordinate system (projection to geolocation)

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07-25-2019 06:29 AM
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KevinQuinn1
New Contributor II

Hello Everyone,

I am a new user of Arcgis Pro, and am having a difficult time finding the proper way to achieve a goal.

I am looking to take an existing shape file (https://www.mass.gov/forms/massgis-request-statewide-parcel-data) and be able to review its features associated with its geometry data in latitude longitude.

The problem is this file seems to use a projected coordinate system, Where as I need the geometry to be in latitude/longitude.  I was thinking the best resolution would be to copy the source shapefile into a new shapefile using some sort of transformation, but I'm having a difficult time locating the specific steps to achieve this ( many tutorials/examples are using an older version of the software so its hard to match up functionality between versions ).

Any help or suggestions, or completely different strategies for achieving a new shapefile or an exported file of another type with lat/lon is appreciated!

Thank You in advance!

1 Solution

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MatthewDriscoll
MVP Alum

There are several ways to do this.  Use the Project tool in the Data Management Tools.  Or right click the shapefile  -> Data -> Export Features,  in the Environments tab change the Output Coordinate System to the Geographic coordinate system you need.

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5 Replies
MatthewDriscoll
MVP Alum

There are several ways to do this.  Use the Project tool in the Data Management Tools.  Or right click the shapefile  -> Data -> Export Features,  in the Environments tab change the Output Coordinate System to the Geographic coordinate system you need.

JoeBorgione
MVP Emeritus

Matthew Driscoll‌ 's suggestion is a good one; perhaps though you could explain your workflow and desired results so that other solutions can be explored.

That should just about do it....
KevinQuinn1
New Contributor II

To start Thank you both for responding!  Currently attempting to use the python code associated with

http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.2/index.html#/Geographic_Transformations/001w0000000v000...

So once that attempt is complete, I'll run Matthew Driscoll‌ 's suggestions since they seem very strait forward, and hopefully that is all I need!

In regards to more context of what I am attempting to achieve:

The problem:

    I have a MongoDb database which contains a number of GeoJson based points.  I am looking to take those points, and search the.shp file ( which contains polygons ) for these points, allowing me to get feature data associated with the shp/dbf files for those points.

Related information:

    The MongoDb database and related infrastructure is running under a Node.js environment, so ideally I'd like most of my processing to be done in node.  I have a node.js library that can parse a shp and dbf file directly ( https://www.npmjs.com/package/shapefile ), and verified this specific shp and .dbf files can be read by the library.  However to my dismay, the geometry was outputted as an array of array of numbers that clearly were not latitude/longitudes, so clearly some sort of transformation is needed.

    So I have been looking for a way for ArcGIS Pro to generate a shapefile with the coordinate system I need, or to export as a different file format with the coordinate system I need and feature data I want.  Csv output seemed strait forward except it doesn't seem to export the polygon data at all ( documentation indicates it only works for point data ).  I saw there was a tool for geojson which seemed ideal but it "seemed" to hang in processing, potentially due to the size of the Mass Gis file (.shp file is over 1gb, and .dbf file is over 2gb in size).  So potentially part of the problem is I need to cut the files up into smaller chunks.  Either way the primary hurdle is getting the coordinate system to be based in latitude / longitude and available in a file format I can parse ( csv / json / shp / xls / xml / kml / realistically most common file formats )

Again, thank you for taking the time to make suggestions!

KevinQuinn1
New Contributor II

A quick follow up, following Matt's suggestion I was able to generate a new .shp file with a coordinate system that contained latitude/longitude based polygons.

Thank you for your help!

MatthewDriscoll
MVP Alum

Make sure to mark it as correct!