Latest Contributions by MarkHotz

Melita: My apologies for not responding sooner.  I don't like it when I'm in the middle of something important (like this) but then get pulled away to do something far less important :-). Now I'm back working on this issue. Thanks a million for demonstrating this using my own data though...this is very much appreciated.  The only thing I don't quite understand though is where do I find the values for "w" and "z"? Are these perhaps the values of central meridian and latitude of origin for the UTM Zone I'm using?  Also, is this for converting from UTM to Ground coordinates?  If so, then it should be relatively simply for me to convert from Ground to UTM as well, correct?  Thanks again ... View more

Ryan: I could certainly use some help getting this set up.  I have CAD data based on local ground coordinates that needs to be converted to UTM.  I have been able to convert the point data manually using the feature to point tool in ArcGIS, and then calculating the geometry to get the local Grid coordinates, export to Excel, and apply the scale factor and corrections (for us the correction was adding 6,000,000 m N and 410,000 m E, and our scale factor is 0.9996899303).  I would then just import that back into ArcGIS after setting the data frame's coordinate system to UTM.  It would be so much easier if I could package this in a projection file and just use that to convert this data.  I have only been able to my cumbersome method with point data (i.e. where coordinates can be created for each point), so I'm looking for a better way. I think my problem is that using Melita's formulae (below) I don't know where the Ground Coordinates originate to be able to to create the false easting and northing for the projection file. Melita's formula from another discussion: x = ground easting y = ground northing UTM-Easting = 1.00011264*x ←where does "x" originate? UTM-Northing = 1.00011264*y + 6000000 ←where does "y" originate? Now we start adjusting the UTM parameters UTM-Easting = 500000 + 0.9996*w UTM-Northing = 0.9996*z where w and z are the "proto-coordinates" calculated by the transverse Mercator algorithm before the scale factor and false easting/northing parameters are applied. 1.00011264*x = 500000 + 0.9996*w ← I can deduce the value of "w", but where does it originate? 1.00011264*y + 6000000 = 0.9996*z ← I can also deduce the value of "z", but where does it originate? x = 500000/1.00011264 + (0.9996/1.000111264)*w y = -6000000/1.00011264 + (0.9996/1.000111264)*z so new parameters for the coordinate system: false easting = 499943.686343 false northing = 5999324.236118 scale factor = 0.99948741774 + the other parameters for the UTM zone (central meridian = -123, latitude of origin = 0). ... View more

Darren: I should add that I was initially trying to label polygons.  When I converted the feature to points and labelled that it worked much better (i.e. more options available). ... View more

Darren: Thanks for the response...it is appreciated.  Knowing that someone else is using the exact same version of the software and is able to use the label expression tool without issue gave me reason to dig deeper :-).  I might have now stumbled (i.e. accidentally) on what "might" have been causing me grief. When I reviewed Placement Properties I experimented by turning off the Maplex "Stack label" option and then my code "text: " & [Field 1] &vbnewline& "text: " & [Field 2] worked.  Perhaps I inadvertently stumbled on a bug, or perhaps one is not supposed to use "Stack label" and "vbnewline" simultaneously?  In any case now the software is doing what it is supposed to be doing...that only had me stumped for an afternoon :-/. Thanks again ... View more

Jayanta: Yup...I got that to work.  Thanks for the help. ... View more

Jayanta: Thanks for the feedback.  I will spend some time today working on this.  I have been able to get labels from ArcGIS into AutoCAD, but multiple labels all fall on the same points; hence, they overlap.  It would be nice to stack them first and then be able to get them into AutoCAD...so I will certainly give your suggestion a more detailed look. Thanks again. ... View more

UPDATE - I have managed to make a connection between ArcGIS Pro and our GIS server (the only thing I did since the last error was to reboot), and I can now add a map service that I would like to cache (I decided to do this in Model Builder as I find that it is better at displaying progress).  However, now when I try to initiate the process I simply get an error: This is particularly frustrating because I am now processing that very same cache with that same map service using the same "Manage Map Server Cache Tiles" tool in ArcCatalog.  It's sort of a shame because I would like very much to see if ArcGIS Pro can do this faster than ArcGIS Desktop. ... View more

I was having issues with IE as well, but it turned out that making changes to the Intranet security fixed those.  Chrome works the way it should...I just need to figure out now what's preventing Firefox from access our data through Portal. ... View more

Michael:  Wow...thanks for this tip.  That's exactly what I have been doing, and I have rebuilt more than a couple of MXD's to republish map services that were suddenly giving me popup grief in Portal (I initially thought that the MXD was corrupted so I just rebuilt a new one and this seemed to fix the problem...but now I know better).   I will definitely give that F12 option a try the next time I run into an issue....I did not know this.  What I did manage to do recently is shut down Portal and then launch it again, and this at least allows me to configure the popups in the other layers that seem to freeze when one starts giving me grief.  However, like you said, the one layer that started the problem is then unrecoverable and has to be republished (as instinct always tells me to save before I quit).  Now I will use F12 and then quit without saving...all good to know. ... View more

Michael: Yes, and using web tier authentication is the direction we're heading.  Thanks for the pointers too as this is helpful.  I, for one, would like to avoid a licensing nightmare :-).  We were in the process of configuring our system (using the web adaptors) as a part of an implementation project, and initially it did not go as well as we had hoped, and we just ran out of time.  As a result we have half a system running properly and the other half still needing to be configured. So what we did was backpedal and will now get our system fully functioning with just a handful of users to start.  Once this has been officially achieved we will then move toward a system that is properly configured through the web adaptor.  We need to have something running very soon so that users can use it to test and experiment this month, so we don't have a lot of time to learn how to do everything correctly.  We need user's input at this point to better see where this system needs to go, and how it will evolve.  We're almost there, but we just feel that rather than rush forward we're going to take a bit of a breather and learn if we're on the right track. Much of this is being set up by ESRI, and in the future they will be working through a DEV-TEST-PROD environment to make sure it works before we make the switch.  Our IT only just acquired the DEV-TEST-PROD servers and they are now ready to be used (they were not available when we started our implementation this past summer). What we have achieved so far is pretty slick though...and it is impressive.  But next month, after our user workshop and demo we will be moving this to the next level.  By the end of this year we will have our system up and running the way it was meant to be. Thanks again ... View more

I believe I have (finally) fixed the issue.  We were in the process of working at Windows authentication for Portal so we could then add restrictions to viewing and editing, and also to access our data through Collector.  This required us to change over to a web based URL for virtually everything, and away from a local GIS server URL to access our data.  However, the project ran into delays and we had to at least temporarily abort our project until later this year.  This then meant that we had to revert all of our paths and URL's back to their original setting, and it turns out that some were missed during this process.  The system can still function when using our main corporate web URL, but it is not a recommended practice to have different paths etc. until one is ready to make the switch permanently. During this process data was added to our current MXD's, so some of them had acquired data from the geodatabase through different paths and URL's than others.  This then undoubtedly corrupted the MXD's...perhaps not in their entirety but at least in some way.  Once I recreated those MXD's after all of the paths and URL's had been properly configured, I was once again able to configure the pop-ups in Portal.  It was that simple. Lesson:  Don't mess around with your system's paths and URL's while you're still using and building data in that system :-). ... View more

Paul: Thanks very much for the feedback.  I will take a look at this when I get back into the office and explore this article deeper.  After reading your explanation of something as simple as changing a default display field to a text field I realize I had a similar experience when I used a default text field to look like <text>.  Apparently Portal reads that as bad HTML code and won't let you edit the data :-)....who knew?  However, what happens a lot in this business is one simple explanation may not solve the immediate problem, but it leads you to a solution that does fix things. Thanks again. ... View more