Converted to Decimal Dgrees not mapping correctly?

[BenDelyea1]

I converted data to decimal degrees.  All my data in ArcMap is going through WGS 1984.  However when it draws, my points they come out in a line far South of Texas.  Any Ideas?

[DanPatterson_Retired]

longitude is the X, latitude is the Y, what did you use to plot it?  Also, a good idea to get rid of the blank rows before bringing it into ArcMap.  Further details required as to your procedure otherwise any further answers would be guessing.​

[BenDelyea1]

I have narrowed it down to being a space most likely in my latitude. (in excel)  Once its in ArcMap I can see in attributes Latitude is null.  I am brand new to GIS, but I believe I plotted it with WSG 1984.  (That's what I set)  I am importing from text file with wizard, its delineated with tabs, and I have set General/Text appropriately.   Now I am just unsure how to locate the space and delete it.  To convert I manually typed in formula and applied row by row.

[DanPatterson_Retired]

​Ok...

• the rows with blanks...get rid of them
• format every numeric column explicitly in Excel, hopefully any spuriuos data will appear.
• you can add Excel data to arcmap...but I will let others guide you on that since it causes no end of grief
• I would export the file to a *.csv file format
• use File|data|add XY data (or something like that) to add the csv file to arcmap
• specify Longitude as the X and latitude as the Y

if that doesn't work, then your numeric fields have 'crap' in them and will have to be processed out.

Good luck

[JayantaPoddar]

Hi Ben,

Could you attach a snapshot of your excel sheet with the fieldnames and the sample Lon/Lat values?

[DanPatterson_Retired]

they are in an attachment to the original post, they do contain entries where coordinates are empty ie Alcino

[JayantaPoddar]

Oops!!! Sorry. I checked it from my inbox, so missed the attachments.

Thanks Dan

[JayantaPoddar]

Hi Ben,

You could convert the Excel sheet to table. Then create XY data from table using GCS_WGS_1984 spatial reference. Export the event layer to shapefile.

Using select by attributes, select the records where latitude = 0.

Start Editing, and delete the selected records. Save and stop editing.

The resulting data looks like this, with 9272 records.

Thanks,

Jay

[GabrielUpchurch1]

Hi Ben,

I removed the trailing space from the "Latitude" field name and was able to display your points in ArcMap.  Give that a shot.