Project a parcel fabric?

[JeffWard1]

I am trying to import our state's PLSS GCDB parcel fabric into my editing fabric. I projected the fabric that I downloaded from the state to the coordinate system I use and used the "copy parcel fabric" geoprocessing tool after selecting a township (and all associated points, first divisions, second divisions, etc.) to a new parcel fabric. I then used the "append parcel fabric" tool to get the township into my editing fabric. All of that works fine, but when I try to duplicate a section it duplicates it into the original coordinates from the state's GCDB fabric coordinate system. I look at the X and Y values for the section corner points and they are in the original coordinate system.

Does projecting a parcel fabric not update the XY values of those features? Am I doing it wrong? Are we stuck with using the state's coordinate system?

Thanks for any input.

Jeff Ward

Small Town GIS

[DanPatterson_Retired]

How did you project it... or did you just define it in the projection you wanted..  an actual projection will produce a new file in the desired coordinates... a definition of a projection, doesn't produce a new file, it just tells the file what it is, which would be wrong, if it isn't in those coordinates to begin with

[JeffWard1]

Thanks for the reply Dan. I used the Project geoprocessing tool in the Data Management toolbox. Apparently you can't project the fabric, but you can project the feature dataset - and I think this is where I am having problems. The fabric draws in the correct place, but the X Y coordinates in the tables are still in the original UTM coordinates, therefore when I duplicate a parcel it goes back to those coordinates.

[DanPatterson_Retired]

The x,y coordinates in the table have obviously been calculated... they are not automatically updated. As a check, run the AddXY coordinates tool in arctoolbox if you don't already have Point_X and Point_Y fields ... it will overwrite them if that is OK.  Otherwise, you can add your fields manually to the table (ie NewX, NewY, type double etc) and use the Calculate Geometry from the active field

[NeilAyres]

And, if the XY coordinates you are talking about are columns in the attribute table of the features, than no, these attributes are not auto-magically updated when the feature is projected to a new coordinate system.

You would have to update them using calculate geometry.

Calculating area, length, and other geometric properties—Help | ArcGIS Desktop 

[JeffWard1]

Thanks for the reply Neil, but a parcel fabric doesn't allow one to calculate geometry. But according to Tim in his reply below I may be able to do a coordinate inverse.

[TimHodson · Accepted solution]

Jeff, if all that needs to change are the x and y coordinates, then you can use the newest feature of the Parcel Fabric Quality Control add-in (Added in Revision 1.1), namely the Coordinate Inverse, that’s available from the context menu after right-clicking the fabric dataset in the Catalog window. (Parcel Fabric Quality Control: http://arcg.is/28ROQfd)

However, if you are projecting to a different unit (International feet to US Feet, for example), then since the line attributes are also not changed, there is no unit conversion applied on the attributed / COGO line lengths of the fabric line table. The distance inverse from the same add-in could be used to solve that problem, as well, but ONLY if the length data on the original source was itself originally inversed, otherwise you'd be overwriting the record data with the shape-lengths. For the Control points on the fabric, if you have any, then they will need to be exported to a standard point feature class, projected, and then re-imported to the target fabric; this would ensure that their geometry matches coordinates.

-Tim

... from the add-in's help doc:

 Coordinate Inverse

The Parcel Fabric Quality Control Add-in also provides a method to inverse the attribute values for parcel fabric points from the stored geometry. The command is accessed by right-clicking the fabric dataset in the catalog window and clicking Coordinate Inverse. Coordinates should always match the geometry, the command will first check to see if there are any differences and update any points that have a coordinate inconsistency.

[JeffWard1]

Tim,

Thanks for the help. I was able to get the coordinates to match the new coordinate system and any duplicating of the parcels places them in the correct space.

One thing that wasn't clear in the help instructions for the add-in was you need to right click on the parcel fabric in the ArcCatalog window in ArcMap, it wouldn't show up in ArcCatalog itself.

Thanks,

Jeff

[TimHodson]

Jeff,

Thanks for the feedback. I've added a bug to the issues list on GitHub, Bug -Parcel Fabric Quality Control: Make Coordinate Inverse work in ArcCatalog · Issue #17 · Esri/pa... 

-Tim